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CHAET.ES DIOKEES. 


7 TO 27 VANDEW/TEf\ St 


E WYo^K;- 


The Seaside Library. 

POCKET EDITION. 


1 NO. PRICE. 

1 Yolande. By 'William Black 20 

2 Molly Bawn. By The Duchess” 20 

3 The Mill on the Floss. By George Eliot 20 

4 Under Two Flags. By‘‘Ouida” 20 

5 Admiral’s Ward. By Mrs. Alexander.. 20 

6 Portia. By “ The Duchess” 20 

7 File No. 113. By Emile Gaboriau 20 

8 East Lynne. By Mrs. Henry Wood 20 

9 Wanda. By ” Ouida ” 20 

10 The Old Curiosity Shop. By Dickens. 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. Miss Mulock 20 

12 Other People’s Money. By Gaboriau. 20 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal. By Helen B. Mathers 10 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian. By ” The Duchess ” 20 

15 Jane Eju'e. By Charlotte Bront6 20 

16 Phyllis. By “ The Duchess ” 20 

17 The Wooing O’t. By Mrs. Alexander.. 20 

18 Shandon Bells. By William Black 20 

19 Her Mother’s Sin. By the Author of 

” Dora Thorne ” 20 

20 *v ithin an Inch of His Life. By Emile 

Gaboriau 20 

21 Sunrise. By William Black 20 

I 22 David Copperfleld. Dickens. "Vol. I.. 20 

22 David Copperfleld. Dickens. Vol. H. 20, 

23 A Princess of Thule. B.y William Black 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Dickens. Vol. I... 20 
24 Pickwick Papers. Dickens. Vol. IL. 20 


25 Mrs. Geoffrey. By ” The Duchess ”... 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Gaboriau. Vol. I. 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Gaboriau. Vol. H. 20 

27 Vanity Fair. By William M. Thackeray 20 


28 Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

29 Beauty’s Daughters. ” The Duchess ” 20 

30 Faith and Unfaith. By “The Duchess” 20 

31 Middlemarch. By George Eliot 20 

32 The Land Leaguers. Anthony Trollope 20 

33 The Clique of Gold. By Emile Gaboi'iau 20 

34 Daniel Deronda. By George Eliot ... 30 

35 Lady Audley’s Secret. Miss Braddon 20 

36 Adam Bede. By George Eliot 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles Dickens 30 

38 The Widow Lerouge. By Gaboriau. . 20 

39 In Silk Attire. By William Black 20 

40 The I^ast Daj's of Pompeii. By Sir E. 

Bulwer Lytton 20 

41 Oliver Twist. By Charles Dickens ... , 20 

42 Romola. By George Eliot 20 

43 The Mystery of Orcival. Gaboriau 20 


44 Macleod of Dare. By William Black. . 20 

45 A Little Pilgrim. By Mrs. Oliphant. . . 10 

46 Very Hard Cash. By Charles Reacle. . 20 

47 Altiora Peto. By Laurence Oliphant. . 20 

48 Thicker Than Water. Bj’^ James Pay n. 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch. By Black. .. 20 

50 Tlie Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. 


B.y William Black 20 

5/ Dora Thorne. By the Author of “ Her 

Mother’s Sin ’’ 20 

52 The New Magdalen. B.y Wilkie Collins. 20 

53 The Story of Ida. By Francesca 10 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring. By the Au- 

thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 20 

.55 The Three Guardsmen. By Dumas 20 

56 Phantom Fortune. Miss Braddon.... 20 

57 Shirley. By Charlotte Bront6 20 


NO. PRIC 


58 By the Gate of the Sea. D. C. Murray : 

59 Vice Versa. By F. Anste3' i 

60 The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper., i 

61 Charlotte Temple. B.y Mrs. Rowson . 1 

62 The Executor. By Mrs. Alexander. . 2 

63 The Spy. B.y J. Fenimore Cooper. . . 2 

64 A Maiden Fair. B3- Charles Gibbon . . 1 

65 Back to the Old Home. B.y M. C. Ha3’ 1 

66 The Romance of a Poor Young Man. 

B.y Octave Feuillet Ji 

67 Lorna Doone. B3^ R. D. Blackmore. . 3* 

68 A Queen Amongst Woi aen. B3' the 

Author of ” Dora Thorne ’ K 

69 Madolin’s Lover. By the Author of 

“Dora Thorne” 2( 

70 White Wings. B3^ William Black 2( 

71 A Struggle for Fame. Mrs. Riddell.. 2t 

72 Old Myddelton’s Mone3^ B3’M. C. Ha.y 2 

73 Redeemed b3^ Love. B3’ the Author of 

“ Dora Thorne ” 2< 

74 Aurora Floyd. B3’ Miss M. E. Braddon 2i 

75 Twenty Years Aftei’. B3" Dumas... 2' 

76 Wife in Name Onl3'. B3’ the Author of 

“ Dora Thorne ” 2t 

77 A Tale of Two Cities. B3- Dickens 2' 

78 Madcap Violet. B3* AYilliam Black... 2' 

79 Wedded and Parted. By the Author 

of “ Doi a Thorne ” ll 

80 June. B.y Mrs. Forrester 2t 

81 A Daughter of Heth. B.y Wm. Black. 2< 

82 Sealed Lips. B3’ F. Du Boisgobe.y . . . 2( 

83 A Strange Stoiy. Bulwer Lytton'. . ... 2( 

84 Hard Times. By Charles Dickens. . . 2t 
^ 85 A Sea Queen. By W. Clark Russell.. 2t 

86 Belinda. B3’ Rhoda Broughton 20 

87 Dick Sand; or, A Captain at Fifteen. 

B.y Jules Verne 20 

88 The Privateersman. Captain Manyat 20 

89 The Red Eric. B3’ R. M. Ballant3 lie. 10 

90 Ernest Maltravers. Bulwer L3’lton . . 20 . 

91 Bhrnab3' Rudge. B3' Charles Dickens. ] 


92 Lord Iwnne's Choice. By the Author 

of “ bora Thorne ” 

93 Anthoiy’ Trollope’s Autobiograply-. . 

94 Little DoiTit. B3' Charles Dickens. . . 

95 The Fire Brigade. R. M. Ballant3’ne 

96 Erling the Bold. B.y R. M. Ballantyne 

97 All in a Garden Fair. Walter Besaht. . 

98 A Woman-Hater. B3' Charles Reade. 

99 Barbara's Histor.3^ A. B. E( 

100 20,000 Leagues Under the 1 

Jules Verne 

101 Second Thoughts. Rhoda B 

102 The IMoonstone. B.3" Wilkie 

103 Rose Fleming. By Dora Russell 

104 The Coral Pin. B3' F. Du Boisgobey. 

105 A Noble 5Vife. B.y John Saunders 

106 Bleak House. B3'^ Charles Dickens. . . 

107 Dombey and Son. Charles Dickens. . 

108 The Cricket on the Health, and Doctor - 

Marigold. B3’ Charles Dickens 

109 Little Loo. B.y W. Clark Russell 

110 Under the Red Flag. By Miss Braddon 

111 The Little School-DIaster Mark. By / 

J. H. Shorthouse f 

112 The Waters of Marah. By John Hil’l 


(This List is Continued on Third Page of Cover.) 


J 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


P' 

By CHARLES DICKERS. 







GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 

17 TO 27 Vandewater Street. 


1 





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The Uncommercial Traveler 


I. 

HIS GENERAL LINE OFBUSINES. 

Allow me to introduce myself— first negatively. 

No landlord is my friend and brother, no chambermaid loves me, 
no waiter worships me, no boots admires and envies me. No round 
of beef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked for me, no pigeon-pie 
is especially made for me, no hotel advertisement is personally ad- 
dressed to me, no hotel-room tapestried with great-coats and rail- 
way wrappers is set apart for me, no house of public entertainment 
in the United Kingdom greatly cares for my opinion of its brandy 
or sherry. When 1 go upon my journeys, 1 am not usually rated 
at a low figure in the bill; when 1 come home from my journeys, 1 
never get any commission. 1 know nothing about prices, and 
should have no idea, if I were put to it, how to wheedle a man into 
ordering something he doesn’t want. As a town traveler, I am 
never to be seen driving a vehicle externally like a young and vola- 
tile pianoforte van, and internally like an oven in which a number 
of flat boxes are baking in layers. As a country traveler, 1 am 
rarely to be found in a gig, and am never to be encountered b}^ a 
pleasure train, waiting on the platform of a branch station, quite a 
Druid in the midst of a light Stonehenge ot samples. 

And yet— proceeding now to introduce myself positively — I am 
both a town traveler and a country traveler, and am always on the 
road. Figuratively speaking, 1 travel for the great house of Human 
Interest Brothers, and have father a large connection in the fancy- 
goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and 
there from my rooms in Covent Garden, London— now about the 
City streets: now about the country by-roads— seeing many little 
things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, 1 
•think may interest others. 

These are my brief credentials as the Uncommercial Traveler. 


11 . 

THE SHIPWRECK. 

Never had 1 seen a year going out, or going on, under quieter 
oircumstances. Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine had but another 
day to live, and truly its end was Peace on that sea-shore that morn- 
ing, 

So settled and orderly was everything seaward, in the bright light 


4: THE Ui^'COMHELlCIAL TRAVELKll. 

of the sun and under the transparent shadows of the clouds, that ife. 
was hard to imagine the bay otherwise, for years past or to come, 
than it was that very day. The Tug-steamer lying a little ofi tho 
shore, the Lighter lying still nearer to the shore, the boat alongside 
the Lighter, the regularly turning windlass aboard the Lighter, the 
methodical figures at work, all slowly and regularly heaving up and 
down with the breathing of the sea. all seemed as much a part of the 
nature of the place as the tide itself. The tide was on the flow, and. 
had been for some two hours and a half; there was a slight obstruc- 
tion in the sea within a few yards of my feet: as if^ the stump of a 
tree, with earth enough about it to keep it from lying horizontally 
on the water, had slipped a little from the land; and as 1 stood 
upon the beach, and observed it dimpling the light swell that was 
coming in, 1 cast a stone over it. 

So orderly so quiet, so regular— the rising and falling of the Tug- 
steamer, the Lighter, and the boat — the turning of the windlass — 
the coming in of the tide— that 1 myself seemed, to my own think- 
ing, anything but new to the spot. 

Yet, 1 had never seen it in my life a minute before, and had 
traversed two hundred miles to get at it. That very morning 1 had 
come bowling down, and struggling up, hill-country roads; looking 
back at snowy summits; meeting courteous peasants, well to do, 
driving fat pigs and cattle to market; noting the neat and thrifty 
dwellings, with their unusual quantity of clean white linen drying 
on the bushes; having windy weather suggested by every cotter’s 
little rick, with its thardi straw-ridged and extra straw-ridged into 
overhanging compartments like the back of a rhinoceros. Had I 
not given a lift of fourteen miles to the I ’oast-guardsman (kit and 
all), who was coming to his spell of duty there, and had we not just 
now parted company? So it was; but the journey seemed to glide 
down into the placid sea, with other chafe and trouble, and for the 
moment nothing was so calmly and monotonously real under the 
sun-light as the gentle rising and falling of the water with its 
freight, the regular turning of the windlass aboard the Lighter, and 
the slight obstruction so very near my feet. 

Oh, reader, haply turning this page by the fireside at Home, and 
hearing the night wind rumble in the chimney, that slight obstruc- 
tion was the uppermost fragment of the Wreck of the “ Royal Char- 
ter,” Australian trader and passenger ship, homeward-bound, that 
struck here on the terrible morning of the twenty-sixth of this Oc- 
tober, broke into three parts, went down with her treasure of at 
least five hundred human lives, and has never stirred since! 

From which point, or from which, she drove ashore, stern fore- 
most; on which side, or on which, she passed the little Island in the 
bay, for ages henceforth to be aground certain yards outside her; 
tliese are rendered bootless questions by the darkness of that night 
and the darkness of death. Here she went down. 

Even as 1 stood on the beach with the words; “ Here she went 
down!” in my ears, a diver in his grotesque dress dipped heavily 
over the side of the boat alongside the Lighter, and dropped to the 
bottom. On the shore, by the water’s edge, was a rough tent, mado 
of fragments of wrecK, where other divers and wmrkmen sheltered 
themselves, and where they had kept Christmas day with rum and 


THE UXCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


0 


roast beet, to the destruction of their frail chimney. Cast up among 
the stones and bowlders of the beach were great spars of the lost ves- 
sel, and masses of iron twisted by the fury of the sea into the stran- 
gest forms. The timber was already bleached, and iron rusted; and 
even these objects did no violence to the prevailing air the whole 
scene wore, of having been exactly the same for years and years. ■ 

Yet, only two short months had gone since a man, living on the 
nearest hill-top overlooking the sea, being blown out of bed at about 
daybreak by the wind that had begun to strip his roof off, and get- 
ting upon a ladder w ith his nearest neighbor to construct some tem- 
porary device for keeping his house over his head, saw from the 
ladder’s elevation, as he looked down by chance toward the shore, 
some dark troubled object close in with the land. And he and the 
other, descending to the beach, and finding the sea mercilessly beat- 
ing over a great broken ship, had clambered up the stony ways, like 
staircases without stairs, on which the wild village hangs in little 
clusters, as fruit hangs on boughs, and had given the alarm. And 
so, over the hill-slopes, and past the w^ater-fall, and down the gullies 
where the laud drains off into the Ocean, the scattered quarry men 
and fishermen inhabiting that part of "VValeshad come running to the 
dismal sight — their clergyman among them. And as they stood in 
the leaden morning stricken with pity, leaning hard against the 
wind, their breath and vision often failing as the sleet and spray 
rushed at them from the ever forming and dissolving mountains of 
sea, and as the wool wiiich was a part of the vessel’s cargo blew in 
with the salt foam, and remained upon the laud when the foam 
melted, they saw the ship’s life- boat put off from one of the heaps 
of w^reck; and first there were three men in her, and in a moment 
she capsized, and there were but tvyo; and again, she was struck by 
a vast mass of water, and there was but one; and again, she was 
thrown bottom upward, and that one, with his arm struck through 
the broken planks and waving as if for the help that could never 
reach him, went down into the deep. 

It was the clergyman himself from whom I heard this, while 1 
stood on the shore, looking in his kind wholesome face as it turned 
to the spot wdiere the boat had been. The divers were down then, 
and bus3^ They were “ lifting ” to-day the gold found 3’^esterday— 
some five aud-twenty thousand pounds. Of three hundred and fifty 
thousand pounds’ worth of gold, three liundred thousand pounds’ 
worth, in round numbers, was at that time recovered. The great 
bulk of the remainder was surely and steadily coming up. Some 
loss of sovereigns there would be, of course; indeed, at first, sorer- 
eigns had drifted in with the sand, and been scattered far and wide 
over the beach, like sea shells; but most other golden treasure would 
be found. As it was brought up, it went aboard the Tug-steamer, 
where good account was taken of it. So tremendous had the force 
of the sea been when it broke the ship, that it had beaten one great 
ingot of gold deep into a strong and heavy piece of her solid iron- 
work; in w^hich, also, several loose sovereigns, that the ingot had 
swept on before it, had been found, as firmly imbedded as though 
the iron had been liquid when they were forced there. It had been 
remarked of such bodies come ashore, too, as had been seen by sci- 
entific men, that they had been stunned to death, and not suffocated. 


6 


THE HNCOHMERCIAL TRAYELER. 


Observation, both of the internal change that had been wrouc^ht in 
them, and of their external expression, showed death to have been 
thus merciful and easy. The report was brought while I was hold- 
ing such discourse on the beach, that no more bodies had come 
ashore since last night. It began to be very doubtful whether many 
more would be thrown up until the northeast winds of the early 
spring set in. Moreover, a great number of the passengers, and par- 
ticularly the second-class women passengers, w^ere knowui to have 
been in the middle of the ship when she parted, and thus the collaps- 
ing wreck would have fallen upon them after yawning open, and 
wmnld keep them down. A diver made known, even then, that he 
had come upon the body of a man, and had sought to release it from 
a great superincumbent weight; but that, finding he could not do 
so without mutilating the remains, he had left it wiiere it w’as. 

It was the kind and wholesome face 1 have made mention of, as 
being then beside me, that I had proposed to m 3 ’self to see when 1 
left home for Wales, I had heard of that clergyman, as having 
buried many scores of the shipwrecked people; of his having opened 
his house and heart to their agonized friends; of his having used 
a most sweet and patient diligence for weeks and weeks in the per- 
formance of the forlornest offices that Man can render to his kind; 
of his having most tenderlj- and thoroughly devoted himself to the 
dead, and to those wdio were sorrowing for the dead. I had said to 
myself, “ In the Christmas season of the year, 1 should like to see 
that man!” And he had swung the gale of his little garden in com- 
ing out to meet me, not half an hour ago. 

So cheerful of spirit and guiltless of affectation, as true practical 
Christianity ever is! I read more of the New Testament in the fresh 
frank face going up the village beside me, in five minutes, than 1 
have read in anathematizing discourses (albeit put to press with 
eimrmous flourishing of trumpets) in all my fife. I heai'd more of 
the Sacred Book in the cordial voice that had nothing to say about 
its owner, than in all the would-be celestial pairs of bellows that 
have ever blowm conceit at me. 

We climbed toward the little church at a cheery pace, among the 
loose stones, the deep mud, the wet coarse grass, the outlying water, 
and other obstructions from which frostand snow’ had lately thaw’ed. 
It was a mistake (my friend was glad to tell me on the way) to sup- 
pose that the peasantry had shown any superstitious avoidance of 
the drowned; on the whole, they had done very well, and had assist- 
ed readily. Ten shillings had been paid for the bringing of each 
body up to the church, but the way was steep, and a horse and cart 
(in which it was wrapped in a sheet) were necessary, and three or 
four men, and all things considered, it was not a great price. The 
people were none the richer for the wreck, for it was the season of 
the herring shoal— and who could cast nets for fish, and find dead 
men and w’omen in the draught? 

lie had the church keys in his hand, and opened the church-yard 
gate, and opened the church-door; and we went in. 

It is a little church of great antiquity; there is reason to believe 
that some church has occupied the spot these thousand years or 
more. The pulpit was gone, snd other things usually belonging to 
the church were gone, owing to its living congregation having de- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


7 


serted it for the neighboring schoolroom, and yielded it op to the 
dead. The very Commandments had been shouldered out of their 
places, in the bringing in of the dead; the black wooden tables on 
which they were painted were askew; and on the stone pavement 
below them, and on the stone pavement all over the church, were 
the marks and stains where the drowned had been laid down. The 
eye, with little or no aid from the imagination, could yet see how 
the bodies had been turned, and where the head had been, and where 
the feet. Some faded traces of the wreck of the Australian ship 
may be discernible on the stone pavement of this little church, hun- 
dreds of years hence, when the digging for gold in Australia shall 
have long and long ceased out of the land. 

Forty- four shipwrecked men and women lay here at onetime, 
awaiting burial. Here with weepirrg and wailing in every room of 
his house, nay companion worked alone for hours, solemnly sur- 
rounded by eyes that could not see him, and by lips that could not 
speak to him, patiently examining the tattered clothing, cutting off 
buttons, hair, marks Ircm linen, anything that might lead to subse- 
quent identification, studying faces, looking for a scar, a bent finger, 
a crooked toe, comparing letters sent (o him with the ruin about him. 
“ My dearest brother Lad bright gray eyes and a pleasant smile,” 
one sister wrote. Oh, poor sister! well for you to be far from here, 
and keep that as your last remembrance of him! 

The ladies of the clergyman’s family, his wife and two sisters-in- 
law, came in among the bodies often. It grew to be the business of 
their lives to do so. Any new arrival of a bereaved woman would 
stimulate their pity to compare the description brought, with the 
dead realities. Sometimes they woirld go back able to say: “I 
have found him,” or “I think she lies there.” Perhairs the 
morrrner, unable to bear the sight of all that lay in the church, would 
be led in blindfoKi. Conducted to the spot with many compassion- 
ate words, and encouraged to look, she would say, with a piercing 
cry, “This is my boy!” and drop insensible on the insensible 
figure. 

He soon observed that in some cases of women, the identification 
of persons, though complete, was quite at variance with the marks 
upon the linen; this led him to notice that even the marks upon the 
linen were sometimes inconsistent with one another; and thus he 
came to understand that they had dressed in great haste and agita- 
tion, and that their clothes had become mixed together. The iden- 
tification of men by their dress was rendered extremely difificult, in 
consequence of a large proportion of them being dressed alike — in 
clothes of one kind, that is to say, supplied by, slop-seirers and 
outfitters, and not made by single garments, but by hundreds. 
Many of the men were bringing over parrots, and had receipts upon 
them for the price of the birds; others had bills of exchange in their 
pockets, cr in belts. Some ot these documents, carefully un- 
wrinkled and dried, were little less fresh in appearance that day 
than the present paere w’ill be, under ordinary cucumstances, after 
having been opened three or four times. 

In that loriely place it had not been easy to obtain even such com- 
mon ccn.rnrditirs in towns as ordinary disinfectants. Pitch had 
been burnt in the church, as the readiest thing at hand, and the fry- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


8 

ing-pan in which it had bubbled over a brazier of coals was still 
there, with its ashes. Hard by the Communion Table were some 
boots that had been taken off the drowned and preserved— a eold- 
ditrger’s boot, cut down the leg for its removal— a trodden-down 
man’s ankle-boot with a buff cloth top— and others— soaked and 
sandy, weedy and salt. 

From the church we passed out into the church-yard. Here there 
lay, at that time, one hundred and forty-five bodies that had come 
ashore from the wreck. He had buried them, when not idenified, 
in graves containing four each. He had numbered each body in a 
register describing it, and had placed a corresponding number on 
each cofiBn, and over each grave. Identified bodies he had buried 
singly, in private graves, in another part of the churchyard. Several 
bodies had been exhumed from the graves of four, as relatives had 
come from a distance and seen his register; and, when recognized, 
these have been reburied in private graves, so that the mourners 
might erect separate headstones over the remains. In all such cases 
he had performed the funeral service a second time, and the ladies 
of his house had attended. There had been no offense in the poor 
ashes when they were brought again to the light of day; the benef- 
icent Earth had already absorbed it. The drowned were buried in 
their clothes. To supply the great sudden demand for coffins, he 
had got all the neighboring people handy at tools to work the live- 
long day, and Sunday likewise. The coffins were neatly formed; 1 
liad seen two, waiting for occupants, under the lea of the ruined 
walls of a stone hut on the beach, within call of the tent where the 
Christmas Feast was held. Similarly, one of the graves for four 
was lying open and ready here, in t)»e church-yard. So much of the 
scanty space was already^ devoted to the wrecked people, that the 
vilagers had begun to express uneasy doubts whether they them- 
selves could lie in their own ground, with their forefathers and de- 
scendants, by and by. The church-y^ard being but a step from the 
clergyman’s dw^elling-house, we crossed to the latter; the white 
surplice was hanging up near the door, ready to be put on at any 
time, for a funeral service. 

The cheerful earnestness of this good Christian minister was as 
consolatory as the circumstances out of which it shone w^ere sad. I 
never have seen anything more delightfully genuine than the calm 
dismissal by himself and his household of all (hey had undergone, 
as a simple duty that was quietly done and ended. In speaking of 
it, they spoke of it with great compassion for the bereaved; but laid 
no stress upon their own hard share in those weary weeks, except 
as it had attached many people to them as friends, and elicited 
many touching expressions of gratitude. This clergyman’s brother 
■ — himself the clergyman of two adjoining parishes, who had buried 
thirty-four of the bodies in his own church-yard, and who had done 
to them all that his brother had done as to the larger number — 
must be understood as included in the family. He was there, with 
his neatly-arranged papers, and made no more account of his trouble 
than anybody else did. Down to yesterday’s post outward, my 
clergyman alone had written one thousand and seventy- five letters 
to relatives and friends of the lost people. In the absence of self- 
assertion, it was only through my now and then delicately putting 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


0 


a question as the occasion arose, that 1 became informed of these 
things. It was only when 1 had remarked again and again, in the 
church, on the awful nature of the scene of death he had been re- 
quired so closely to familiarize himself with for the soothing of the 
living, that he had casually said, without the least abatement of his 
cheerfulness: “Indeed, it had rendered him unable for a time to 
eat or drink more than a little coliee now and then, and a piece of 
bread.” 

In this noble modesty, in this beautiful simplicity, in this serene 
avoidance of the least attempt to “ improve ” an occasion which 
might be supposed to have sunk of its own weight into my heart, 1 
seemed to have happily come, in a few steps, from the churchyard 
with its open grave, which was the type of l)eath, to the Christian 
dwelling side by side with it, which was the type of Resurrection. 
I never shall think of the former without the latter. The two will 
always rest side by side in my memory. If I had lost any one dear 
to me in this unfortunate ship, if I had made a voyage from Aus- 
tralia to look at the grave in the churchyard, I should go away 
thankful to God that that house was so close to it, and that its 
shadow by day and its domestic lights by night fell upon the earth 
in which its Master had so tenderly laid my dear one’s head. 

The references that naturally rose out of our conversation to the 
descriptions sent down of shipwrecked persons, and to the gratitude 
of relations and friends, made me very anxious to see some of those 
letters. I was presently seated before a shipwreck of papers all 
bordered with black, and from them I made the following few 
extracts. 

A mother writes: 

“Reverend Sir,— Amongst the many who perished on your 
shore was numbered my beloved son. I was only just recovering 
from a severe illness, and this fearful affliction has caused a relapse, 
so that I am unable at present to go to identify the remains of the 
loved and lost. My darling son would have been sixteen on Christ- 
mas-day next. He was a most amiable and obedient child, early 
taught the way of salvation. We fondly hoped that as a British 
seaman he might be an ornament to his profession, but, ‘ it is 
well;’ I feel assured my dear boy is now with the redeemed. Oh, 
he did not wish to go this last voyage! On the fifteenth of October 
I received a letter from him from Melbourne, date August twelfth; 
he wrote in high spirits, and in conclusion he says: ‘Pray for a 
fair breeze, mamma, and I’ll not forget to whistle for it! and, God 
permitting, 1 shall see you and all my pets again. Good-by, dear 
mother— good-by, dearest parents. Good-by, dear brother.’ Oh, 
it was indeed an eternal farewell! I do not apologize for thus writ- 
ing you, for oh! my heart is so very sorrowful.” 

A husband writes: 

“My dear kind Sir,— Will you kindly inform me whether 
there are any initials upon the ring and guard you have in posses- 
sion, found as the Standard says, last Tuesday? Believe me, nay 
dear sir, when I say that 1 cannot express my deep gratitude in 
words sufficiently for your kindness to me on that fearful and ap- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRATELER. 


10 

\ 

palling day. "Will you tell me what I can do for you, and will you 
w'lite me a consoling letter to prevent my mind from going as- 
tray?” 

A widow writes: 

“ Left in such a state as I am, my friends and I thought it best 
that my dear husband should be buried where he lies, and, much as 
1 should have liked to have had it otherwise, I must submit. 1 feel, 
from all 1 have heard of you, that you will see it done decently and 
in order. Little does it signify to us, when the soul has departed, 
where this poor body lies, but we who are left behind would do all 
we can to show how we loved them. This is denied me. but it is 
God’s hand that afflicts us, and 1 try to submit. Borne day I may 
be able to visit the spot, and see where he lies, and erect a simple 
stone to his memory. Oh' it will be long, long before 1 forget that 
dreadful night! Is there such a thing in the vicinity, or any shop 
in Bangor, to which 1 could send for a small picture of Moelfra or 
Llauallgo Church, a spot now sacred to me?” 

Another widow writes: 

, “ I have received your letter this morning, and do thank you most 

kindly for (he interest you have taken about my dear husband, as 
well for the sentiments yours contains, evincing the spirit of a Chris- 
tian tvho can sympathize with those who, like myself, are broken 
, down with grief. 

,, ” May God bless and sustain you, and all in connection with you, 

in this trial! Time may roll on, and bear all its sons aw^ay, but 
your name as a disinterested person will stand in history, and, as 
successive 5 ’ears pass, many a widow' will think of your noble con- 
duct, and the tears of gratitude flow' down many a cheek, the tribute 
of a thankful heart, when other things are forgotten forever.” 

A father writes: 

“ I am at a loss to find words to sufficiently express my gratitude 
to you for your kindness to my son Richard, upon the melancholy 
occasion of his visit to his d6ar brother’s body, and also for your 
ready attention in pronouncing our beautiful burial service over my 
]>oor unfortunate son’s remains. God grant that your prayers over 
iiim may reach the Mercy Seat, and that his soul may be received 
(through Christ’s intercession) into heaven. 

‘‘ Ills dear mother begs me to convey to you her heartfelt thanks.'' 

y Those w'ho were received at the clergyman’s house write thus 
after leaving it: 

” Dear AND NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN Friends,— 1 arrived here 
yesterday morning without accident, and am about to proceed to 
my home by railway. 

” 1 am overpowered w'hen I think of you and your hospitable 
home. No words could speak language suited to my heart. I re- 
frain. God rew'ard you with the same measure you have meted 
with! 

*'1 enumerate no names, but embrace you all.” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


11 


“ My beloved Friends,— This is the first day that 1 have been 
able to leave my bedroom since 1 returned, wdiich will explain the 
reason of my not writing sooner. 

“ If I could only have had my last melancholy hope realized in 
recovering the body of my beloved and lamented son, 1 should have 
returned home somewhat comforted, and I think I could then have 
been comparatively resigned, 

“ 1 fear now there is but little prospect, and 1 mourn as one with- 
out hope, 

“ The only consolation ta my distrsssed mind is in having been 
so feelingly allowed by you to leave the matter to your hands, by 
whom 1 well know that everything will be done than can be, accord- 
ing to arrangements made before 1 left the scene of the awful ca- 
tastrophe, both as to the identification of my dear son, and also his 
interment. 

“ I feel most anxious to hear whether anything fresh has trans- 
pired since I left you: will you add another to the many deep obli- 
gations I am under to you by writing to me? And should the body 
of my dear and lyafortunate son be identified, let me hear from you 
immediately, and I will come again, 

“ Words cannot express the gratitude I feel 1 owe to you all for 
your benevolent aid, your kindness, and your sympathy.’' 

’ “ My dearly-beloved Friends, — I arrived in safety at my house 

yesterday, and a night’s rest has restored and tranquilized me. I 
must again repeat that language has no words by which I can ex- 
press my sense of obligation to you. You are enshrined in my heart 
of hearts. 

“ 1 have seen him! and can now realize my'misfortune more than 
I have hitherto been able to do. Oh, the bitterness of the cup, I 
drink! But I bow submissive. God m-wst have done right. Ido 
not want, to feel less but to acquiesce more simply,” 

There were some Jewish passengers on board the ‘‘ Royal Char- 
ter,” anti the gratitude of the Jewish people is feelingly expressed 
in the following letter, bearing date from ” the office of the Chief 
Rabbi:” 

“Reverend vSir. — I cannot refrain from expressing to you my 
heartfelt thanks on behalf of those of my flock whose relatives have 
unfortunately been among those who perished at the late wreck of 
the ‘ Royal Charter.’ You have indeed, like Boaz, ‘not left off 
your. kindness to the living and the dead.’ 

“ You have not alone acted kindly toward the living, by receiving 
them hospitably at your house, and energetically assisted them in 
their mournful duty, but also toward the dead, by exerting yourself 
to have our co religionists buried in our ground, and according to 
our rites. May our heavenly Father, reward you for your acts of 
humanity and true philanthropy!” 

The “Old Hebrew congregation of Liverpool” thus express 
themselves through their secretary: 

“ Reverend Sir,— The wardens of this congregation have learned 
wdth great pleasure that, in addition to those indefatigable exertions, 


THE UHCOMMEKCTAL TRAVELER. 


at the scene of the late disaster to tlie ‘ Royal Charter,’ which have 
received universal recognition, you have very benevolentl 3 'emplo\'ed 
your valuable efforts to assist such members of our faith as have 
sought the bodies of lost friends to give them burial in our conse- 
crated grounds, with the observances and rites prescribed by the 
ordinances of our religion. 

“ The wardens desire me to take the earliest available opportunity 
to offer to you, on behalf of our community, the expression of their 
wuirm acknowledgments and grateful thanks, and their sincere wishes 
for your continued welfare and prosperity.” 

A Jewish gentleman writes: 

” Reverend and dear Sir, — I take the opportunity of thank- 
ing you right earnestly for the promptness you displayed in answer- 
ing my note with full particulars, concerning my much-lamented 
brother, and 1 also herein beg to express my sincere regard' for the 
willingness you displayed, and for the facility you afforded, for 
getting the remains of my poor brother exhumed. Tt has been to 
us a most sorrowful and painful event, but, when we meet with 
such friends as yourself, it in a measure, somehow or other, abates 
that mental anguish, and makes the suffering so much easier to be 
borne. Considering the circumstances connected with my poor 
brother’s fate, it does, indeed, appear a hard one. He had been 
away, in all, seven years; he returned four years ago to see his 
family. He was then engaged to a veiy amiable young lad^'. He 
had been very successful abroad, and was now returning to fulfill 
his sacred vow; he brought all his property with him in srold unin- 
sured. We heard from him when the ship stopped at Queenstown, 
when he was in the highest of hope, and in a few short hours after- 
ward all was washed away.” 

Mournful in the deepest degree, but too sacred for quotation here, 
were the numerous references to those miniatures of wmmen worn 
around the necks of rough men (and found there after death), those 
locks of hair, those scraps of letters, those many, many slight me- 
morials of hidden tenderness. One man cast up by the sea bore about 
him, printed on a perforated lace card, the following singular (and 
unavailing) charm; 

‘ ‘ A BLESSING’. 

” May the blessing of God await thee. May the sun of glory shine 
around thy bed; and may the gates of plenty, honor, and happiness 
he ever open to thee. May no sorrow distress thy days; ma}’’ no 
grief disturb thy nights. May the pillow of peace kiss thy cheek, 
and the pleasures of imagination attend thy dreams; aiid when 
length of years makes thee tired of earthly joys, and the curtain of 
death gently closes around thy last sleep of human existence, may 
the Angel of God attend thy bed, and take care (hat the expiring 
lamp of life shall not receive one rude blast to hasten on its extinc- 
tion,” 

A sailor had these devices on his right arm: ” Our Saviour on the 
Cross, the forehead of the Crucifix and the vesture stained red; on 
the lower part of the arm, a man and woman; on one side of the 


THE UJTCO-MMERCIAL TRAVEILEK. 


13 


Cross, the appearance of a half moon, with a face; on the other 
side, the sun; on tlie top of the Cross, the letters l.H.S. ; on the left 
arm, a man and woman dancing, with an effort to delineate the 
female’s dress, under which, initials.” Another seaman ” nad, on 
the lower part of the right arm, the device of a sailor and a female; 
the man hoUlina the Union Jack with a streamer, the folds of which 
waved over her head, and the end of it was held in her hand. On 
the upper part of the arm, a device of Our Lord on the Cross, with 
stars surrounding the head of the Cross, and one large star on the 
side in Indian ink. On the left arm, a flag, a true lover’s knot, a 
face, and intitials.” This tattooing was found still plain, below the 
discolored outer surface of a mutilated arm, when such surface was 
carefully scraped away with a knife. It is not improbable that the 
perpetuation of this marking custom amon" seamen may be referred 
back to their desire to be identified if drowned and flung ashore. 

It was some time before I could sever myself from the many in- 
teresting papers on the table, and then I broke bread and drank 
wine with the kind family before I left them. As I brought the 
Coast-guard down, so I took the Postman back with his leathern 
wallet, walking-stick, bugle, and terrier dog. Many a heart-broken 
letter had he brought to the Rectory House witliin two months; 
many a benignantly painstaking answer had he carried back. 

As I rode along, I thought of the many people, inhabitants of this 
mother-country, who would make pilgrimages to the little church- 
yard in the years to come; 1 thought of the man}’- people in Aus- 
tralia who would have an interest in such a shipwreck, and would 
find their way here when they visit the Old World ; 1 thought of 
the writers of all the wreck of letters I had left upon the table; and 
I resolved to place this little record where it stands. Convocations, 
Conferences, Diocesan Epistles, and the like, will do a great deal 
for Religion, I dare say, and Heaven send they may! but 1 doubt if 
they will ever do their Master’s service half so w^ell, in all the time 
they last, as the Heavens have seen it done in this bleak spot upon 
the* rugged coast of Wales. 

Had 1 lost the friend of my life in the wreck of the ” Royal 
Charter;” had I lost my betrothed, the more than friend of my life; 
had I lost my maiden daughter, had I lost my hopeful boy, had I 
lost my little child; I wmuld kiss the hands that worked so busily 
and gently in the church, and say: ‘‘ Nonebetter could have touched 
the form, though it had lain at home.” 1 could be sure of it, I 
could be thankful for it; 1 could be content to leave the grave near 
the house the good family pass in and out of everyday, undisturbed 
in the little church-yard where so many are so strangely brought 
together. 

Without the name of the clergyman to whom— I hope, not with- 
out carrying comfort to some heart at some time— I have referred, 
my reference would be as nothing. He is the Reverend Stephen 
Roose Hughes, of Llanallgo, near Moelfra, Anglesey. His brother 
is the Reverend Hugh Robert Hughes, of Penrhos, Alligwy. 


14 


THE UHCOMMEECIAL TRAVELEK, 


III. 

WAPPING AVORKHOCSE. 

My day’s no-business beckoning me to the East-end of London, 1 
bad turned my face to that point of the metropolitan compass on 
leaving Covent Garden, and had got past the India House, think- 
ing in my idle manner of Tippoo Sahib and Charles Lamb, and had 
got past my little Wooden Midshipman, after affectionately patting 
him on one leg of his knee shorts for old acquainlance’ fake, and 
had got past Aldgate Pump, and had got past the Saracen’s Head 
(with an ignominious rash of posting-bills disfiguring his swarthy 
countenance), and had strolled up the empty yard of his ancient 
neighbor the Black or Blue Boar, or Bull, who departed this life I 
don’t know when, and whose coaches are all gone I don’t know 
where; and 1 had come out again into the age of railways, and 1 
had got past Whitechapel Church, and was— rather inappropriately 
for an Uncommercial Traveler— in the Commercial Road. Pleas- 
antly wallowing in the abundant mud of that thoroughfare, and 
greatly enjoying the huge piles of building belonging to the sugar 
refiners, the little masts and vanes in small back gardens in back 
streets, the neighboring canals and docks, the India vans lumber- 
ing along their stone tramway; and the pawnbrokers’ shops where 
hard-up mates had pawned so many sextants and quadrants, that I 
should have bought a few cheap if I had the least notion how to 
use them, I at last began to file off to the right, toward Wap ping. 

Not that 1 intended to take boat at Wapping Old Stairs, or that I 
A\"as going to look at the locality, or because I believe (for 1 don’t) in 
the constancy of the young woman who told her seagoing lover, to 
such a beautiful old tune, that she had ever continued the same 
since she gave him the ’baccer-box marked with his name; 1 am. 
afraid he usually got the worst of those transactions, and was fright- 
fully taken in. No, I was going to Wapping, because an Eastern 
police magistrate had said, through the morning papers, that there 
was no classification at the Wapping Workhouse for women, and 
that it was a disgrace and a shame, and divers other hard names, 
and because 1 wished to see how the fact really stood. For, that 
Eastern police magistrates are not always the wisest men of the 
East may be inferred from their course of procedure respecting the 
fancy-dressing and pantomime-posturing at St. George’s in that 
quarter; which is usually to discuss the matter at issue, in a state of 
mind betokening the weakest perplexity, with all parties, concerned 
and unconcerned, and, for a final expedient, to consult the com- 
plainant as to w^hat he thinks ought to be done with the defendant, 
and take the defendant’s opinion as to what he should recommend 
to be done with himself. 

Long before I reached Wapping, 1 gave myeself up as having lost 
my way, and, abandoning myself to the narrow streets in a Turkish 
frame of mind, relied on predestination to bring me somehow or 
other to the place I wanted, if I were ever to get there. When I 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAA’^ELER. 


15 


Siad ceased for ao hour or so to lake any trouble about the matter, 
1 found myself on a swing-bridge, looking down at some dark 
locks in some dirty water. Over against me stood a creature re- 
motely in the likeness of a young man, with a puffed sallow face, 
and a figure all dirty and shiny and slimy, who may have been the 
youngest son of his filthy old father, Thames, or the drowned man 
about whom there was a placard on the granite post like a large 
thimble, that stood between us, 

I asked Ihia apparition what it called the place? Unto which it 
replied, with a ghastly grin and a sound like gurgling water in its 
throat; 

“ Mr. Baker’s trap.” 

As it is a point ot great sensitiveness with me on such occasions 
to be equal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation, 1 deeply 
<3onsidered the meaning of this speech, while 1 eyed the apparition 
— then engaged in hugging and sucking a horizontal iron bar at the 
top of the locks. Inspiration suggested to me that Mr. Baker was 
the acting coroner of that neighborhood. 

” A common place for suicide,” said 1, looking down at the 
locks. 

“Sue?” returned the ghost with a stare, “Yes! And Poll. 
Likewise Emily. And Nancy. And Jane;” he sucked the iron 
between each name; “and all the bileing. Ketches off their 
bonnets or shorls, takes a run, and headers down here, they does. 
Always a headerin’ down here, they is. Like one o’clock.” 

“ And at about that hour of the morning, I suppose?” 

“Ah!” said the apparition. ” ain’t partickler. Two ’ull 
fov them. Three, All times o’ night. On’y mind you!” Here 
the apparition rested his profile on the bar, and gurgled in a sarcas- 
tic manner. “ There must be somebody cornin’. They don’t go a 
headerin’ down here' when there ain’t no Bobby nor General Cove 
fur to hear tho splash.” 

According to my interpretation of these words,] was myself a 
General (;ove, or member of the miscellaneous public. In which 
modest character I remarked: 

“ They are often taken out, are they, and restored?” 

“I clunno about restored,” saicf the apparition, who, for some 
occult reason, very much objected to that word; “ they’re carried 
into the werkiss, and put into a ’ot bath, and brought round. But 
I dunno about restored,” said the apparition; “ blow that !” — and 
vanished. 

As it had shown a desire to become offensive, 1 was not sorry to 
find myself alone, especially as the “ werkiss ” it had indicated with 
a twist of its matted head was close at hand. So I left Mr. Baker’s 
■terrible trap (baited with a scum that was like the soapy rinsing of 
sooty chimneys), and made bold to ring at the workhouse gate, 
whore 1 was wholly unexpected and quite unknown. 

A very bright and nimble little matron, with a bunch of keys in her 
hand, responded to my request to see the House. I began to doubt 
whether the police magistrate wms quite right in his facts, when 1 
noticed her quick active' little figure and her intelligent eyes. 

The traveler (the matron intimated) should sae the worst first. 
Ho was welcome to see everything. Such as it was, there it all was. 


16 


THE UNCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 


This was the only preparation for our entering “ the Foul 
wards.” They were in an old building squeezed away in a corner 
of a paved yard, quite detached from the more modern and spa- 
cious main body of the workhouse. They were in a building most 
monstrously behind the time— a mere series of garrets or lofts, with 
every inconvenient and objectionable circumstance in their con- 
truction, and only accessible by steep and narrow staircases, infa- 
mously ill-adapteci for the passage up-stairs of the sick, or down-stair& 
of the dead. 

Abed in these miserable rooms, here on bedsteads, there, for a 
change, as 1 understood it, on the floor, were women in every stage 
of distress and disease. None but those who have attentively ob- 
served such scenes can conceive the extraordinary variety of ex- 
pression still latent under the general monotony and uniformity of 
color, attitude and condition. The form a little coiled up and 
turned away, as though it had turned its back on this world forever ; 
the uninterested face, at once lead-colored and yellow, looking 
passively upward from the pillow; the haggard mouth a little 
dropped, the hand outside the coverlet, so dull and indifferent, so 
light and yet so heavy; these were on every pallet; but when I 
stopped beside a bed, and said ever so slight a word to the figure 
lying there, the ghost of the old character come into the face, and 
made the Foul ward as various as the fair world. No one appeared 
to care to live, but no one complained ; all who could speak said 
that as much was done for them as could be done there, that the at- 
tendance was kind and patient, that their suffering was very heavy, 
but they had nothing to ask for. The wretched rooms were as clean 
and sweet as it is possible for such rooms to be; they would become 
a pest-house in a single week, if they were ill kept. 

1 accompanied the brisk matron up another barbarous staircase, 
into a better kind of loft, devoted to the idiotic and imbecile. There 
was at least Light in it, whereas the windows in the former wards 
had been like sides of school-boys’ bird-cages. There was a strong 
grating over the fire here, and holding a kind of state on either side 
of the hearth, separated by the breadth of this grating, were two 
old ladies in a condition of feeble dignity, which was surely the 
very last and lowest reduction of self-complacency to be found in 
this wonderful humanity of ours. They were evidently jealous of 
each other, and passed their whole time (as some people do whose 
fires are not grated) in mentally disparaging each other, and con- 
temptuously watching their neighbors. One of these parodies on 
provincial gentlewomen was extremely talkative, and expressed a 
strong desire to attend the service on Sundays, from which she rep- 
resented herself to have derived the greatest interest and consola- 
tion when allowed that privilege. She gossiped so well, and looked 
altogether so cheery and harmless, that 1 began to think this a case 
for the Eastern magistrate, until I found that, on the last occasion 
of her attending chapel, she had secreted a small stick, and had 
caused some confusion in the responses by suddenly producing it 
and belaboring the congregation. 

So, these two old ladies, separated by the breadth of the grating 
—otherwise they would fly at one another’s caps — sat all day long, 
suspecting one another, and contemplating a world of fits. For 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


ir 


everybody else in the room had his, except the wards- woman; an 
elderly, able-bodied pauperess, with a large upper lip, and an air of 
repressing and saving her strength, as she stood with her hands 
folded before her, and her eyes slowly rolling, biding her time for 
catching or holding somebody. This civil personage (in whom 1 
regretted to identify a reduced member of my honorable friend 
Mrs. Gamp’s family) said, “ They has ’em continiwal, sir. They 
drops without no more notice than if they was coach horses dropped 
from the moon, sir. And when one drops, another drops, and 
sometimes there’ll be as many as four or five on ’em at once, dear 
me, a rolling and a tearin’, bless you! This young woman, now, 
has ’em dreadful bad.” 

She turned up this young woman’s face with her hand as she 
said it. This young woman was seated on the floor, pondering in 
the foreground of the afflicted. There was nothing repellent either 
in her face or head. Many, apparently worse, varieties of epilepsy 
and hysteria were about lier, but sue was said to be the worst here. 
When I had spoken to her a little, she still sat with her face turned 
up, pondering, and a gleam of the midday sun showering in upon 
her. 

Whether this young woman, and the rest of these so sorely 
troubled, as they sit or lie pondering in their confused, dull way, 
ever get mental glimpses, among the motes in the sunlight, of 
healthy people and healthy things? Whether this young woman, 
brooding like this in the summer season, ever thinks that some- 
where there are trees and flowers, even mountains and the great 
sea? Whether, not to go so far, this young woman ever has any 
dim revelation of that young woman — that young woman who is 
not here, and never will come here; who is courted and caressed, 
and loved, and/has a husband, and bears children, and lives in a 
home, and who never knows what it is to have this lashing and 
tearing coming upon her? And whether this young woman, God 
help her! gives herself up then, and drops like a coach horse from 
the moon? 

1 hardly knew whether the voices of infant children, penetrating 
into so hopeless a place, made a sound that was pleasant or pain- 
ful to me. It was something to be reminded thatThe weary world 
was not all aweary, and was ever renewing itself; but, this young 
woman was a child not long ago, and a child not long hence might 
be such as she. Howbeit, the active step and eye of the vigilant 
matron conducted me past the two provincial gentlewomen (whose 
dignity was ruffled by the children) and into the adjacent nursery. 

There were many babies here, and more than one handsome 
young mother. There were ugly young mothers also, and sullen 
young mothers, and callous young mothers. But the babies had 
not appropriated to themselves any bad expression yet, and might 
have been, for anything that appeared to the contrary in their soft 
faces. Princes Imperial and Princesses Royal. I had the pleasure 
of giving a poetical commission to the baker’s man to make a cake 
with all dispatch, and toss it into the oven for one red-headed young 
pauper and myself, and felt much the better for it. Without that 
refreshment I doubt it I should have been in a condition for “ the 
Refractories,” toward whom my quick little matron — for whose 


18 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


adaptation to her office 1 had by this time conceived a. genuine re- 
spect— drew me next, and marshaled me the way that 1 was going. 

The Refractories were picking oakum in a small room giving on 
a yard. They sat in line on a form, with their backs to a window; 
before them a table and their work. The oldest Refractory was, 
say twenty; youngest Refractory, say sixteen. I have never yet 
ascertained, in the course of my uncommercial travels, why a Re- 
fractory habit should affect the tonsils and uvula; but 1 have 
alwa.ys observed that Refractories of both sexes and every grade, 
between a Ragged School and the Old Bailey, have one voice, in 
which the tonsils and uvula gain a diseased ascendancy. 

“ Five pound, indeed! 1 hain’t a-going fur to pick five pound,’’ 
said the Chief of the Refractories, keeping time to herself with her 
head and chin. “ More than enough to pick what. we picks now, in 
sich a place as this, and on wot we gets here!” 

(This was in acknowledgment of a delicate intimation that the 
amount of work was likely to be increased. It certainly was not 
heavy then, for one Refractory had already done her day’s task — it 
wasimrely two o’clock — and was sitting behind it, with a head ex- 
actly matching it.) 

” A pretty ’Ouse this is, matron, ain’t it?” said Refractory Two, 
“ where a pleeseman’s called in if a gal says a word!” 

” And vr’en you’re sent to prison for nothink or less!” said the 
Chief, tugging at her oakum as if it were the matron’s hair. ” But 
any place is better than this; that’s one thing, and be thankful!” 

A laugh of Refractories, led by Oakum Head with folded arms — 
who originated nothing, but who was in command of the skirmish- 
ers outside the conversation. 

“If any place is better than this,” said my brisk guide in the 
calmest manner, ” it is a pity you left a good place when you had 
one.” 

“No, no, 1 didn’t, matron!” returned the Chief, with another 
pull at lier oakum, and a veiy expressive look at the enemy’s fore- 
head. ” Don’t say that, matron, cos it’s lies!” 

Oakum Head brought up the skirmishers again, skirmished, and 
retired. 

‘‘ And 1 warn’t a-going,” exclaimed Refractory Two, ” though 1 
was in one place for as long as four year— i w^arn’t a-going fur to 
stop in a place that warn’t "fit for me— there! And where the fam- 
ily weren’t ’spectabie characters— there! And w^here I, forl’nately 
or hunfort’nately, found that the people weren’t what they pretend- 
ed to make theirselves out to be— theie! And where it wasn’t their 
faults, by chalks, if I warn’t made bad and ruinated. Hah!” 

During this speech Oakum Head had again made a diversion with 
the skirmishers, and had again withdrawn. 

The Uncommercial Traveler ventured to remark that he supposed 
Chief Refractory and IS umber Two to be the tw o young women 
who had been taken before the magistrate? 

” Yes!” said the Chief, ” we har! and the wonder is, that a pleese* 
man ain’t ’ad in now, and We took off ageu. Y^ou can’t open your 
lips here without apleeseman.” 

Number Two laughed (very uvularly), aud the skirmishers fol- 
lowed suit. 


THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


19 


“ I’m sure I’d be thankful,” protested the Chief, looking side- 
wa 3 's at the Uncommercial, ” if i could be got into a place, or got 
abroad. I’m sick and tired of this precious ’Ouse, I am, with 
reason.” 

So would be, and so was, Number Two. So would be, and so 
was. Oakum Head. So would be, and so were, Skirmishers. 

The Uncommercial took the liberty of hinting that he hardly 
thought it probable that any lady or gentleman, in want of a likely 
young domestic of retiring manners, would be toerpted into the en- 
gagement of either of the twm leading Refractories, on her own 
presentation of herself as per sample. 

It ain’t no good being nolhink else here,” said the Chief. 

The Uncomm(‘rcial thought it might be worth trying. 

” Oh, no, it ain’t!’ said the Chief. 

” "Not a bit of good,” said Number Two. 

” And I’m sure I’d be very thankful to be got into a place, or got 
abroad,” said the Chief. 

” And so should said Number Two. “ Truly thankful, I 
should.” 

Oakum. Head then rose, and announced, as an entirely new idea, 
the mention of which profound novelty might be naturally expected 
to startle her unprepared hearers, that she would be very thankful 
to be got into a place, or got abroad. And, as if she had then said, 
” Chorus ladies!” all the skirmishers struck up to the same pur- 
pose. TVe left them, thereupon, and began a long w'alk among the 
women who were simply old and infirm; but whenever, in the 
course of this same w^alk, I looked out of any high window that 
commanded the yard, I saw Oakum Head with all the other Re- 
fractories, looking out at their low window for me, and never fail- 
ing to catch me, the moment I showed my head. 

In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden 
time as youtlf, the prime of life, or a hale old age. In ten minutes 
all the lights of wmmankind seemed to have been blown out, and 
nothing in that w'ay to be left this vault to brag of, but the flicker- 
ing and expiring snuffs. 

And what was very curious w’as, that these dim old women had 
one company notion whieh was the fashion of the place. Every 
old woman who became a?7are of a visitor, and was not in bed, 
hobbled over a form into her accustomed seat, and became one of a 
line of dim old women confronting another line of dim old women 
across a narrow table. There was no obligation whatever upon 
them to range themselves in this way; it was their manner of ” re- 
ceiving,” As a rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, 
or to look at the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently 
working their mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. In some of 
these wards it was good to see a few green plants; in others, an 
isolated Refractory acting as nurse, who did w^ell enough in that 
capacity when separated from her compeers. Every one of these 
wards, day-room, night-room, or both combined, was scrupulously 
clean and fresh. I have seen as many such places as most travelers 
in my line, and I never saw one such better kept. 

Among the bedridden there was great patience, great reliance on 


THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


20 

the books under the pillow, great faith in God. All cared for Lym- 
pathy, but none much cared to be encouraged with hope of re- 
covery; on the whole, 1 should say, it was considered rather a dis- 
tinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a worse 
way than the rest. From some of the windows Ihe river could be 
seen, with all its life and movement; the day was bright, but 1 
came upon no one who was looking out. 

In one lar^e ward, sitting by the fire in arm-chairs of distinction, 
like the President and Vice of the good company, were two old 
w«)men, upward'of ninety years of age. The younger of the two, 
just turned ninety, was deaf, but not very, and could easily be 
made to hear. In her early time she had nursed a child, who was 
now another old woman, more infirm than herself, inhabiting the 
very same chamber. She perfectly understood this when the matron 
told it, and with sundry nods and motions of her forefinger, pointed 
out the woman in question. The elder of this pair, ninety-three, 
seated before an illustrated newspaper (but not reading it), w^as a 
bright-eyed old soul, really not deaf, wonderfully preserved, and 
amazingly conversatioDal. She had not long lost her husband, and 
had been in that place a little more than a year. At Boston, in the 
State of Massachusetts, this poor creature would have been individ- 
ually addressed, would have been tended in her own room, and 
would have had her life gently assimilated to a conrfortable life out 
of doors. "Would that be much to do in England for a woman wTio 
has kept herself out of a workhouse more than oinet}'' rough long 
years? When Britain first, at Heaven’s command, arose, with a 
great deal of allegorical confusion, from out the azure main, did 
her guardian angels positively forbid it in the Charter which has 
been so much besung? 

The object of my journey was accomplished wdien the nimble 
matron had no more to show me. As I shook hands with her at 
the gate, I told her that I thought Justice had not used her very 
w^ell, and that the wise men of the East were not infallible. 

Now, I reasoned with myself, as I made my journey home again, 
concerning those Foul wards. They ought not to exist; no person 
of common decency and humanity can see them, and doubt it. But 
what is this Union to do? The necessary alteration would co«t 
several thousands of pounds; it has already to support three work- 
houses; its inhabitants work hard for their bare lives, and are 
already rated for the relief of the Poor to the utmost extent of 
reasonable endurance. One poor parish in this very Union is rated 
to the amount of Five and Sixpence in the pound, at the very 
same time when the rich parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, 
is rated at about Sevbnpence in the pound, Paddington at about 
Fourpence, St. James’s, Westminster, at about Tenpence! It is 
only through the equalizatibn of Poor Rates that what is left un- 
done in this wise can be done. Much more is left undone, or is ill 
clone, than 1 have space to suggest in these notes of a single uncom- 
mercial journey; but, the wise men of the East, before they can 
reasonably hold forth about it, must look to the North and South 
and West; let them also, any morning before taking the seat of Sol- 
omon, look into the shops and dwellings all around the Temple, 
and first ask themselves, “ How much more can these poor people 


THE UXCOMMEKCIAL TRATELER. 


21 


— many of wliom keep themselves with difficulty enough out of the 
w'orkhouse— bear?” 

1 had yet other matter for reflection as I journeyed home, inas- 
much as, before I altogether departed from the neighborhood of Mr. 
Baker’s trap, I had knocked at the gate of the workhouse of St. 
George’s-in-ihe-East, and had found it to be an establishment highly 
creditable to those parts, and thoroughly w’ell administered by a 
most intelligent master. 1 remarked in it an instance of the collat- 
■: ral harm that obstinate vanity and folly can do. This^was the 
Hall where those old paupers, male and female, whom I had just 
>een, met for the Church service, w'as it?” — “Yes.”— “Did they 
sing the Psalms to any instrument?” — “ They would like to very 
much; they would have an extraordinar 3 Mnterest in doing so. ” — 
“ And could none be got?” — “ Well, a piano could even have been 
got for nothing, but these unfortunate dissensions ” Ah! bet- 

ter, far better, my Christian friend in the beautiful garment, to 
have left the singing boys alone, and left the multitude to sing for 
themselves! You should know better than 1, but 1 think 1 have 
read that they did so, once upon a time, and that “ when they had 
sung an hymn,” Some one (not in a beautiful garment) w^ent up 
unto the l^fount of Olives. 

It made my heart ache to think of this miserable trifling, in the 
streets of a city where every stone seemed to call to me, as 1 walked 
along, “ Turn this w’ay, man, and see what waits to be done!” So 
I decoyed myself into another train of thought to ease my heart. 
But, 1 don’t know that I did it, for I was so full of paupers that it 
was, after all, only a change to a single pauper, who took posses- 
sion of my remembrance instead of a thousand. 

“ 1 beg your pardon, sir,” he had said, in a confidential manner, 
on another occasion, taking me aside; “ but I have seen better 
days. ” 

“ 1 am very sorry to hear it.” 

“ Bir, I have a complaint to make against the master.” 

“ I have no power here, 1 assure you. And if I had ” 

“ But allow me, sir, to mention it, as between yourself and a man 
'who has seen better days, sir. The master and myself are both 
masons, sir, and 1 make him the sign continuallj’^; but, because I 
am in this unfortunate position, sir, he won’t give me the counter- 
sign!” 


IV. 

TWO VIEWS OF A CHEAP THEATER. 

As I shut the door of my lodging behind me, and came out into 
the streets at six on a drizzling Saturday evening in the last past 
month of January, all that neighborhood of Covent Garden looked 
very desolate. It is so essentially a neighborhood which has seen 
better days, that bad weather affects it sooner than another place 
which has not come down in the world. In its present reduced con- 
dition it bears a thaw almost worse than any place I know. It gets 
so dreadfully low-spirited wdien damp breaks forth. Those won- 
derful houses about Drury-Lane Theater, wdiich in the palmy days 


22 


THE UK COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


of theaters were prosperous and Ions; settled places of business, and 
w'hicli now change hands every week, but never change their char- 
acter of being divided and subdivided on the ground-floor into moldy 
dens of shops, where an orange and half-a-dozen nuts, or a poma- 
tum pot, one cake of fancy soap, and a cigar box are offered for 
sale, and never sold, were most ruefully contemplated that evening 
by the statue of Shakespeare, with the rain drops coursing one 
another down its innocent nose. Those inscrutable pigeon-hole 
offices, with nothing in them (not so much as an inkstand) but a 
model of a theater before the curtain, where, in the Italian Opera 
season, tickets at reduced prices are kept on sale by nomadic gen- 
tlemen in smeary hats too tall for them, whom one occasionally 
seems to have seen on race courses, not wholly unconnected with 
strips of cloth of various colors and a rolling ball — those Bedouin 
establishments, deserted by the, tribe, and tenantless, except when 
sheltering in one corner an irregular row of gingeu-beer bottles, 
which would have made one shudder on such a night, but for its 
being plain that they had nothing in them, shrunk from the shrill 
cries of the newsboys at their Exchange in the kennel of Catherine 
Street, like guilty things upon a fearful summons. At the pipe- 
shop, in Great Bussell Slreet, the Death’s-head pipes were like 
theatrical memento mori, admonishing beholders of the decline of 
the playhouse as an Institution. I walked up Bow Street, disposed 
to be angry with the shops there, that were letting out theatrical 
secrets by exhibiting to work-a-day humanity the stuff: of wdiich 
diadems and robes of kings are made. 1 noticed that some shops 
which had once been in the dramatic line, and had struggled out of 
it, were not getting on prosperously — like some actors 1 have 
known, who took to business, and failed to make it answer. In a 
word, those streets looked so dull, and, considered as theatrical 
streets, so broken and bankrupt, that the Found Dead on the black 
board at the police station might have announced the decease of the 
Drama, and the pools of water outside the fire-engine maker’s at 
the corner of Long Acre might have been occasioned by his having- 
brought out the whole of his stock to play upon its last smoldering 
ashes. 

And yet, on such a night in so degenerate a time, the object of 
my journey was theatrical. And yet within half an hour 1 was in 
an immense theater, capable of holding nearly five thousand people. 

What Theater? Her Majesty’s? Far better. Royal Italian 
Opera? Far better. Infinitely superior to the latter for hearing in; 
infinitely superior to both for seeing in. To every part of this 
Theater, spacious fire-proof ways of ingress and egress. For every 
part of it, convenient places of refreshment and retiring rooms. 
Everything to eat and drink carefully supervised as to quality, and 
sold at an appointed price; respectable female attendants ready for 
the commonest women in the audience; a general air of considera- 
tion, decorum, and supervision, most commendable; an unquestion- 
ably humanizing influence in all the social arrangements of the 
place. 

t?urely a dear Theater, then? Because there were in London (not 
very long ago) Theaters with entrance prices up to half a guinea a 
head, whose arrangements were not half so civilized. Surely, there- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TllATELER. 


23 


fore, a dear Theater? Not very dear. A gallery at threepence, 
another gallery at fourpence, a pit at sixpence, boxes and pit-stalls 
at a shilling, and a few private boxes at half a crown. 

M}’’ uncommercial curiosity induced me to go into every nook of 
this great place, and iamong every class of the audience assembled 
an it — amounting that evening, as I calculated, to about two thou- 
sand and odd hundreds. Magnificently lighted by a firmament of 
sparkling chandeliers, the building was ventilated to perfection. 
My sense of smell, without being particularly delicate, has been so 
•offended in some of the commoner places of public resort, that I 
have otten been obliged to leave them when 1 have made an un- 
commercial journey expressly to look on. The air of this Theater 
was fresh, cool, and wholesome. To help toward this end, very 
sensible precautions had been used, ingeniously combining the ex- 
perience of hospitals and railway stations. Asphalt pavements 
substituted for wooden floors, honest bare walls of glazed brick and 
lile— even at the back of the boxes— for plaster and paper, no 
benches stuffed, and no carpeting or baize used ; a cool material, 
with a light glazed surface, being the covering of the seats. 

These various contrivances are as well considered in the place in 
•question as if it were a Fever Hospital; the result is, that it is sweet 
and healthful. It has been constructed, from the ground to the 
roof, with a careful reference to sight and sound in every corner; 
the result is, that iis form is beautiful, and that the appearance of 
the audience, as seen from the proscenium — with every face in it 
commanding the stage, and the whole so admirably raked and 
turned to that center, that a hand can scarcely move in the great 
iisrtemblage without the movement being seen from thence — is 
highly remarkable in its union of vastness and compactness, The 
stage itself, and all its appurtenances of machinery, cellarage, 
lieiglit, and bi^eadth, are on a scale more like the Scala at ]\Iilan, or 
the San Carlo at Naples, or the Grand Opera at Paris, than any 
notion a stranger would be likely to form of the Britannia Theatre 
45t Hoxton, a mile north of St. Luke’s Hospital in the Old Street 
Hoad, London. I’lie Forty Thieves might be played there, and 
every thief ride his real horse, and the disguised captain bring in 
his oil jars on a train of real camels, and nobody be put out of the 
way. This s’eally extraordinary place is the achievement of one 
man’s enterprise, and was erected on the ruins of an inconvenient 
old buildirg in less than five months, at a round cost of five-and- 
iwenty thousand pounds. To dismiss this part of my subject, and 
still to render to the proprietor the credit that is strictly his due, I 
must add that his sense of the responsibility upon him to make the 
best of his audience, and to do his best for them, is a highly agreea- 
ble sign of these times. 

As the spectators at this Theater, for a reason I will presently 
show, were the object of my journey, I entered on the play of the 
night as one of tlie two thousand and odd hundreds, by looking 
about me at my neighbors. We were a motley assemblage of peo- 
ple, and we had a good many boys and young men among us; we 
Jiad also many girls and young women. To represent, however, 
that we did not include a very great number and a very fair propor- 
tion of family groups, would be to make a gross mis-statement. 


24 


THE UNCOMilERCIAL TRAVELER. 


Such groups were to be seen in all parts of the house; in the boxes 
and stalls, particularly, they were composed of persons of very 
decent appearance, who had many children with them. Among' 
our dresses there were most kinds of shabby and greasy wear, and 
much fustian and corduroy that w'as neither sound nor fragrant. 
The caps of our young men were mostly of a limp character, and 
we who wore them, slouched, high-shouldered, into our places with 
our hands in our pockets, and" occasionally twisted our cravats 
about our necks like eels, and occasionally tied them down our 
breasts like links of sausages, and occasionally had a screw in our 
hair over each cheek-bone with a slight Thief flavor in it. Besides 
prowlers and idlers, we were mechanics, dock laborers, coster- 
mongers, petty tradesmen, small clerks, milliners, staymakers, 
shoe-binders, slop-workers, poor workers in a hundred highways 
and by-ways. Many of us— on the whole, the majority— were not 
at al'l clean, and not at all choice in our lives or conversation. But 
we had all come together in a place where our convenience was well 
consulted, and where we were well looked after, to enjoy an even- 
ing’s entertainment in common. We were not going to lose any 
part of what we had paid for through anybody’s caprice, and as a 
community we had a character to lose. So, we were closely attent- 
ive, and kept excellent order; and let the man or boy who did 
otherwise instantly get out from this place, or we would put him 
out with the greatest expedition. 

We began at half-past six with a pantomime—with a pantomime 
so long, that, before it was over, I felt as if 1 had been traveling 
for six weeks — going to India, say, by the Overland Mail. The 
Spirit of Libertv was the principal personage in the Introduction, 
and the Four Quarters of the World came out of the globe, glitter- 
ing, and discoursed with the Spirit, who sang cliarmingly. We 
were delighted to understand that there was no liberty anywhere 
but among ourselves, and we highly applauded the agreeable fact. 
In an allegorical way, which did as well as any other way, we and 
the Spirit of Liberty got into a kingdom of Needles and Pins, and 
found them at war with a potentate who called in to his aid their 
old arch enemy Rust, and who would have got the better of them if 
the Spirit of Liberty had not, in the nick of time, transformed the 
leaders into Clown, Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, Harlequina, 
and a whole family of sprites, consisting of a remarkably stout 
fsther and three spineless sons. We all knew what was coming 
when the Spirit of Liberty addressed the king with a big face, and 
his Majesty backed to the side-scenes, and began untying himself 
behind, with his big face all on one side. Our excitement at that 
crisis was great, and our delight unbounded. After this era in our 
existence, we went through all the incidents of a pantomime; it 
was not by any means a savage pantomime, in the way of burning^ 
or boiling people, or throwing them out of window, or cutting them 
up; was often very droll; was always liberally got up, and cleverly 
presented. I noticed that the people who kept the shops, and wha 
represented the passengers in the thoroughfares, and so forth, had 
no conventionality in them, but were unusually like the real thing 
—from which I infer that you may take that audience in (if you 
wish to) concerning Knights and Ladies, Fairies, Angels, or such 


THE UXCOMMEKCIAL TRAYELER. 


25 


like, but they are not to be done as to anything in the streets. 1 
noticed, also, that when two young men, dressed in exact imitation 
of the eel-and-sausage-cravated portion of the audience, were chased 
by policemen, and, finding themselves in danger of being caught, 
dropped so suddenly as to oblige the policemen to tumble over 
them, there was great rejoicing among the caps— as though it were 
a delicate reference to something they had heard of before. 

The Pantomime was succeeded by a Melodrama. Throughout 
the evening I was pleased to observe Virtue quite as triumphant as 
she usually is out of doors, and, indeed, I thought rather more so. 
We all agreed (for the time) that honesty was the best policy, and 
we were as hard as iron upon Vice, and we wouldn’t hear of Vil- 
lainy getting on in the world — no, not on any consideration what- 
ever. 

Between the pieces, we almost all of us went out and refreshed. 
Many of us went the length of drinking beer at the bar of the 
neighboring public-house, some of us drank spirits, crowds of us 
had sandwiches and ginger-beer at the refreshment bars es- 
tablished for us in the Theater. The sandwich — as substantial 
as was consistent with portability, and as cheap as possible — 
we hailed as one of our greatest institutions. It forced its way 
among us at all stages of the entertainment, and we w^ere al- 
ways delighted to see it; its adaptability to the varying moods of 
our nature was surprising; we could never weep so comfortably as 
W'hen ourfears fell on our sandwich ; we could never laugh so heartily 
as whenwechoked with sandwich; Virtue never looked so beautiful, 
or Vice so deformed, as when we paused, sandwich in hand, to 
•consider what would come of that resolution of Wickedness in 
boots, to sever Innocence in flowered chintz from Honest Industry in 
striped stockings. When the curtain fell for the night, we still 
fell back upon sandwich, to help us through the rain and mire, and 
home to bed.' 

This, as I have mentioned, was Saturday night. Being Saturday 
night, I had accomplished but the half of my uncommercial jour- 
ney; for its object was to compare the play on Saturday evening 
with the preaching in the same Theater on Sunday evening. 

Therefore, at the same hour of half-past six on the similarly damp 
,and muddy Sunday evening, I returned to this Theater. 1 drove up 
Ho the entrance (fearful of being late, or I should have come on foot), 
and found myself in a large crowd of people, who, 1 am happj' to 
state, were put into excellent spirits by ray arriyal. Having noth- 
ing to look at but the mud and the closed doors, they looked at me, 
and highly enjoyed the comic spectacle. My modesty inducing me 
to draw olf, some hundred of yards, into a dark corner, they at once 
forgot me, and applied themselves to their former occupation of 
looking at the mud and looking in at the closed doors; which, be- 
ing of grated iron- work, allowed the lighted passage within to be 
seen. They were chiefly people of respectable appearance, odd and 
impulsive, as most crowds are, and making a joke of being there, 
as most crowds do. 

In the dark corner 1 might have sat a long while, but that a very 
obliging passer-by informed me that the Theater was already full, 
and that the people whom 1 saw in the street were all shut out for 


26 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


want of room. After that, 1 lost no time in worming myself into 
the building, and creeping to a place in a proscenium box that had 
been kept for me. 

There must have been full four thousand people present. Care- 
fully estimating the pit alone, 1 could bring it out as holding little 
less than fourteen hundred. Every part of the house was well filled, 
and 1 had not found it easy to make my way along the back of the 
boxes to where I sat. The chandeliers in the ceiling were lighted; 
there was no light on the stage; the orchestra was empty. The 
green curtain was down, and, packed pretty closely on chairs on 
the small space of stage before it, were some thirty gentlemen, and 
two or three ladies. In the center of these, in a desk or pulpit 
covered with red baize, was the presiding minister. The kind of 
rostrum he occupied will be very well understood if 1 hken it to a 
boarded-up fire-place turned toward the audience, with a gentleman 
in a black surtout standing in the stove, and leaning forrvard over 
the mantel- piece. 

A portion of Scripture was being read when I went in. It was 
followed by a discourse, to which the congregation listened with 
most exemplary attention and uninterrupted silence and decorum. 
My own attention comprehended both the auditory and the speaker,, 
and shall turn to both in this recalling of the scene, exactly as it 
did at the time. 

“ A very difficult thing,” 1 thought when the discourse began, 
“ to speak appropuiately lo so large an audience, and to speak with 
tact. Without it, better not to speak at all. Infinitely better to 
read the New Testament well, and to let that speak. In tliis congre- 
gation there is indubitably one pulse; but I doubt if any power short 
of genius can touch it as one, and make it answer as one.” 

1 could not possibly say to myself, as the discourse proceeded, 
that the minister was a good speaker. I could not possibly say 
to myself that he expressed an understanding of the general 
mind and character of his audience. There was a supposititious 
working-man introduced into the homily, to make supposititious 
objections to our Christian religion and be reasoned down, who was. 
not only a very disagreeable person’ but remarkably unlike life- 
very much more unlike it than anything I had seen in the panto- 
mime. The native independence of character this artisan w^as sup- 
posed to possess %vas represented by a suggestion of a dialect that I 
certainly never heard in my uncommercial travels, and with a coarso 
swing of voice and manner anything but agreeable to his feelings, I 
should conceive, considered in the light of a portrait, and as far 
away from the fact as a Chinese Tartar. There was a model parrper 
introduced in like manner, who appeared to me to be the most in- 
tolerably arrogant pauper ever relieved, and to show himself in abso- 
lute want and dire necessity of a course of Stone A^ard. For, how 
did this pauper testify to his having received the gospel of 
humility? A gentleman, met him in the wmrkhouse, and said {wdiich 
1 myself really thought rather good-natured of him), ‘‘Ah, John! 
1 am sorry to see you here. I am sorry to see you so poor.” 
” Poor, sir!” replied that man, drawing himself up; ” I am the son 
of a Prince! 3Iy father is the King of Kings. My father is the 
Lord of Lords. My father is the iiuler of all the Princes of the 


' THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 27 

Earth!” And this was what all the preacher’s fellow-sinners 
mitjjht come to, if they would embrace this blessed book — which I 
must say it did some violence to my own feelings of reverence to 
see held out at arm’s length at frequent intervals, and soundingly 
slapped, like a slow lot at a sale. Now, could 1 help asking my- 
self the cpiestion, whether the mechanic before me, who must detect 
the preacher as being wrong about the visible manner of himself 
and the like of himself, and about such a noisy lip-server as that 
pauper, might not, most unhappily for the usefulness of the oc- 
casion, doubt that preacher’s being right about things not visible to 
human senses? 

Again. Is it necessary or advisable tt) address such an audience 
continually as “fellow-sinners”? Is it not enough to be fellow-creat- 
ures, born yesterday, suffering and striving to-day, dying to mor- 
row? B}’' our common humanity', my brothers and sisters, ' 03 ^ our 
common capacities for pain and pleasure, by our common laughter 
and our common tears, b}’' our common aspiration to reach some- 
thing better than ourselves, by our common tendency to believe in 
something good, and to invest whatever we love or whatever we lose 
with some qualities that are superior to our own failings and weak- 
nesses as we know them in our own poor hearts — by these. Hear 
me! — Surely, it is enough to be fellow-creatures. Surely, it includes 
the other designation, and some touching meanings over and above., 

Again. There w^as a personage introduced into the discourse 
(not an absolute novelty, to the best of m}^ remembrance of my 
leading), who had been personally known to the preacher, and had 
been quite a Crichton in all the ways of philosophy, but had been an 
infidel. Many a time had the preacher talked with him on that sub- 
ject, and many a lime had he failed to convince that intelligent 
man. But he fell ill, and died, and before he died he recorded his 
conversion — in'vvords which the preacher had taken down, my fel- 
low-sinners, and would read to you from this piece of paper. I must 
confess that to me, as one of an uninstructed audience, they did not 
appear parlicularl}’ edifying. 1 rliought their tone extremely self- 
ish, and 1 thought they had a spiritiial vanity in them which was 
of the before-mentioned refractory pauper’s family. 

All slangs and twangs are objectionable everywhere, but the slang 
and twang of the conventicle — as bad in its way as that of the House 
of Commons, and nothing worse can be said of it— should be studi- 
ouslv avoided under such circumstances as I describe. The avoid- 
ance was not complete on this occasion. Nor was it quite agreeable 
to see the preacher addressing his pet “ points ” to his backers on the 
stage, as if appealing to those disciples to show him up, and testify 
to the multitude that each of those points was a clincher. 

But, in respect of the large Christianity of his general tone; of 
his renunciation of all priestly authority; of his earnest and 
reiterated assurance to the people that the commonest among them 
could work out their own salvation if the}^ would, by simply, lov- 
ingly, and dutifully following Our Saviour, and that they needed the 
mediation of no erring man; in these particulars, this gentleman 
deserved all praise. Nothing could be better than the spirit, or the 
plain emphatic words of his discourse in these respects. And it 
was a most significant and encouraging circumstance that w^hen- 


23 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


ever he struck that chord, or whenever he described anything which 
Christ himself had done, the array of faces before him was very 
much more earnest, .and very much more expressive of emotion, 
than at any other time. 

And now 1 am brought to the fact, that the lowest part of the 
audience of the previous night teas not there. There is no doubt 
about it. There was no such thing in that buildino;, that Sunday 
evening. 1 have been told, since, that tire lowest part of the audi- 
ence of the Victoria Theater has been attracted to its Sunday serv- 
ices. 1 have been very glad to hear it, but, on this occasion of which 
I write, the lowest part of the usual audience of the Britannia 
Theater decidedlj'' and unquestionably stayed away. When 1 first 
took my seat and looked at the house, ray surprise at the change in 
its occupants was as great as my disappointment. To the most re- 
spectable class of the previous evening was added a great number 
of respectable strangers attracted by curiosity, and drafts from the 
re.gular congregations of various chapels. It was iiupossible to fail 
in identifying the character of these last, and they were very numer- 
ous. 1 came out in a strong, slow tide of them setting from the 
boxes. Indeed, while the discourse was in progress, the respecta- 
ble character of the auditory was so manifest in their appearance, 
that when the minister addressed a supposititious “outcast,” one 
really felt a little impatient of it, as a figure of speech not justified 
by anything the eye could discover. 

The time appointed for the conclusion of the proceedings was 
eight, o’clock. The address hav^ing lasted until full that time, and it 
being the custom to conclude with a hymn, the preacher intimated 
in a few sensible words that the clock had struck the hour, and that 
those who desired to go before the hymn was sung, could go now, 
without giving offense. No one stirred. The hymn was then sung, 
in good time and tune and unison, and its effect was very striking. 
A comprehensive benevolent prayer dismissed the throng, and in 
seven or eight minutes there was nothing left in the Theater but a 
light cloud of dust. 

That these Sunday meetings in Theaters are good things, I do not 
doubt. Nor do 1 doubt that they will work lower and lower down 
in the social scale, if those who preside over them will be very care- 
ful on two heads: firstly, not to disparage tine places in whicli they 
speak, or the intelligence of their hearers; seccndly, not to set them- 
selves in antagonism to the natural inborn desire of the mass of 
mankind to recreate themselves and to be amused. 

There is a third head, taking precedence of all others, to which my 
remarks on the discourse I heard have tended. In the New Testa- 
ment there is the most beautiful and affecting history conceivable 
by man, and there are the terse models for all prayer and 
for all preaching. As to the models, imitate them, Sunday 
preachers— else why are they there, consider? As to the history, 
tell it. Some people cannot read, some people will not read, many 
people (this especiall.y holds among the young and ignorant) find it 
hard to pursue the verse form in which the book is presented to 
them, and imagine that those breaks imply gaps and want of con- 
tinuity. Help them over that first stumbling block by setting forth 
the history in narrative, wiih no fear of exhausting it. You will 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


^^9 

never preach so well, you will never move them so profoiindh”, 
you will never send them away with half so much to think of.. 
Which is the better interest: Christ’s choice of twelve poor men to 
help in those merciful wonders among the poor and rejected; 
or the pious bullying of a whole Union full of paupers? VVhat is 
your changed philo.sopher to wretched me, peeping in at the door 
out of the mud of the streets and of my life, when you have the 
widow’s son to tell me about, tiie ruler’s daughter, the other tlgiire 
at the do Dr when the brother of the two sisters was dead, and one 
of the two ran to the mourner, crying, “ The Master is come, and 
calleth for thee ”? — Let the preacher who will thoroughly forget him- 
self, and remember no individuality but one, and no eloquence but 
one, stand up before four thousand men and women at the Britannia 
Theater any Sunday night, recounting the narrative to them as fel- 
low-creatures, and he shall see a sight! 


V. 

POOR MERCANTILE JACK. 

Is the sweet little cherub who sits smiling aloft, and keeps watch 
on the life of poor Jack, commissioned to take charge of Mercantile 
Jack, as well as Jack of the national navy? If not, who is? What 
is the cherub about, and what are we all about, when poor Mercan 
tile Jack is having his brains slowl}'^ knocUed out by pennyweights, 
aboard the brig “ Beelzebub, ” or the bark “ Bowie-knife ’’—when 
he looks his last at that infernal craft, with the first officer’s iron 
boot-heel in his remaining e^^e, or with his dying body towed over- 
board in the ship’s wake, while the cruel wounds in it do “ the 
multitudinous seas incarnadine ”? 

Is it unreasonable to entertain a belief that if, aboard the brig 
“ Beelzebub ” or the bark “ Bowie-knife ” the first oflicer did half 
the damage to cotton that he does to men, there would presently 
arise from both sides of the Atlantic so vociferous an invocation of 
the sweet little cherub who sits calculating aloft, keeping watch on 
the markets that pay, that such vigilant cherub would, with a winged 
sword, have that gallant officer’s organ of destructiveness out of his 
head in the space of a flash of lightning? 

If it be unreasonable, then I am the most unreasonable of men, 
for I believe it with all my soul. 

This was my thought as I walked the dock-quays at Liverpool 
keeping watch on poor Mercantile Jack. Alas for mel I have long 
outgrown the state of sweet little cherub; but there I was, and there 
Mercantile Jack was, and rery busy he was, and very cold he was; 
the snow yet lying in the frozen furrows of the land, and the north- 
east winds snipping off the tops of the little waves in the Mersey, 
and rolling them into hail-stones to pelt him with. Mercantile Jack 
was hard at it, in the hard w'eather: as he mostly is in all w'eathers, 
poor Jack! He was girded to ships’ masts and funnels of steamers, 
like a forester to a great oak, scraping and painting; he was lying 
out on yards, furling sails that tried to beat him off; he was dimly 
discernible up in a world of giant cobwebs, reefing and splicing; he 
was faintly audible down in holds, stowing and unshipping cargo; 


30 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


he was windioff round and round at capstans melodious, monoton- 
ous, and drunk; he was of a diabolical aspect, with coaling for the 
xVntipodes; he was washins: decks barefoot, with the breast of his 
red shirt open to the blast, thoui»h it was sharper than the knife in 
his leathern girdle; he was looking over bulwarks, all e.yes and 
hair; he was standing by at the shoot of the Cunard steamer, off 
to-morrow, as the stocks-in-trade of several butchers, poulterers, 
and fish-mongers poured down into the ice-house; he was coming 
aboard of other vessels with his kit in a tarpaulin bag, attended by 
p'underers to the very last moment of bis shore-going existence. 
As though his senses, when released from the uproar of the elements, 
w^ere under oblisfation to be contused by other turmoil, there was a 
rattling of wheels, a clattering of hoofs, a clashing of iron, a jolting 
of cotton and hides and casks and timber,and incessant deafening dis- 
turbance on the quays, that was the very madness of sound. And 
as, in the midst of it, he stood swaying about, with his hair blown all 
manner of wild wa5"s, rather crazedly taking leave of his plunderers, 
all the rigging in the docks was shrill in the wind, and every little 
steamer coming and going across the Mersey was sharp in its blow- 
ing off, and every buoy in the river bobbed spitefully’- up and down, 
as if there -was a general taunting chorus of “ Come along, Mercan- 
tile Jack! Ill lodged, ill fed, ill used, hocussed, entrapped, antici- 
pated, cleaned out. Come along. Poor Mercantile Jack, and be 
tempest-tossed till you are drowned!” 

The uncommercial transaction which had brought me and Jack 
together was this : Iliad entered the Liverpool police force, that I 
might have a look at the various unlawful traps which are every 
night set for Jack. As my term of service in that distinguished 
corps was short, and as my personal bias in the capacity of one of 
its n'lembets has ceased, no suspicion will attach to my evidence 
that it is an admirable force. Besides that it is composed, without 
favor, of the best m/>n that can be picked, it is directed by an un- 
usual intelligence. Its organization against Fires I take to be 
much better than the metropolitan system, and in all respects it 
tempers its remarkable vigilance with a still more remarkable dis- 
cretion. 

Jack had knocked off work in the docks some hours, and I had 
taken, for the purposes of identification, a photograph likeness of a 
thief, in the portrait-room at our head police-office (on the whole, he 
seemed rather complimented by the proceeding), and I had been on 
police parade, and the small hand of the clock was moving on to 
ten, when I took up my lantern to follow Mr. Superintendent to the 
traps that were set for Jack, In Mr. Superintendent I saw as any- 
body might, a tall, well-looking, well-set-up man of a soldierly 
bearing, with a cavalry air, a good chest, and a resolute but not by 
any means, ungentle face. He carried in his hand a plain black 
walking-stick of hard wood; and wdienever and wherever, at any 
after-time of the night, he struck it on the pavement with a ringing 
sound, it instantly produced a whistle out of the darkness, and a 
policeman. To this remarkable stick I refer an air of mystery and 
magic which pervaded the whole of my perquisition among the traps 
that were set for Jack. 

We began by diving into the obscurest streets and lanes of the 


THE UJSrCOHMERCIAL TRAVELEEi. 


31 


port. Suddenly pausing in a flow of cheerful discourse before a 
dead wall, apparently some ten miles long, Mr. Superintendent 
struck upon the ground, and the wall opened, and shot out, with 
military salute of hand to temple, two policemen— not in the least 
surprised themselves, not in the least surprising Mr. Superintendent. 

“ All right, Sharpeye?” 

“ All right, sir.” 

“ All right, Trampfoot?” 

“ All right, sir.” 

“ Is Quickear there?” 

” Here 1 am, sir.” 

” Come with us.” 

” Yes, sir.” 

So Sharpeye went before, and Mr. Superintendent and 1 went next, 
and Trampfoot and Quickear marched as rear guard. Sharpeye, I 
soon had occasion to remark, had a skillful and quite nrofessionai 
way of opening doors— touched latches delicately, as if they were 
keys of musical instruments— opened every door he touched, as if 
he were perfectly confident that there was stolen property behind 
it — instantly insinuated himself, to prevent its being shut. 

Sharpeye opened several doors of traps that were set for Jack, but 
Jack did not happen to be in any of them. They were all such 
miserable places that really. Jack, if 1 were you, I would give them 
a wider berth. In every trap somebody was sitfing over a fire wait- 
ing for Jack, Now it was a crouching old woman, like the picture 
of the Norwood Gypsy in the old* sixpenny dream-books; now it 
was a crimp of the male sex, in a checKed shirt and without a coat, 
reading a newspaper; now it was a man crimp and a woman crimp, 
who always introduced themselves as united in holy matrimony; 
now it was Jack’s/delight, his (un) lovely Nan; but the}'- were all 
waiting for Jack, and were all frightfully disappointed to see us. 

” Who have you got up- stairs here?” says Sharpeye, generally. 
(In the Move-on tone.) 

” Nobody, sur; sure not a blessed sowl!” (Irish feminine reply.) 

” What do you mean by nobody? Didn’t I hear a woman’s step 
go up-Stairs wdren my hand was on the latch?” 

“Ah! sure, thin, you’re right, suit, I forgot her. ’Tis on’y 
Betsy White, suit. Ah! you know Betsy, surr. Come down, 
Betsy darlin’, and say the gintlemin.” 

Generally, Betsy looks over the balusters (the steep staircase is 
in the room) with a forcible expression in her protesting face of an 
intention to compensate herself for the present tiial by grinding 
Jack finer than usual when he does come. Generalh^ Sharpeye 
turns to Mr. Superintendent, and says, as if the subject of his re- 
marks were wax-work, 

” One of the worst, sir, this house is. This woman has been in- 
dicted three times. This man’s a regular bad one likewise. His 
real name is Pegg, Gives himself out as Waterhouse,” 

‘‘Never had sich a name as Pegg near me back, thin, since 1 
was in this house, bee the good Lardl” says the woman. 

Generally, the man says nothing at all, but becomes exceedingly 
round-shouldered, and pretends to read his paper wdth rapt attcii- 
tion. Generally, Sharpeye directs our observation, wdth a look, to 


32 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


the prints and pictures that are invariably numerous on the walls. 
Always Trampfoot and Quickear are taking notice on the door-step. 
In default of Sharpeye being acquainied with the exact individu- 
ality of any gentleman encountered, one of these two is sure to 
proclaim from the outer air, like a gruff specter, that Jackson is 
not .Jackson, but knows himself to be Fogle; or that Canlon is 
Walker’s brother, against whom there was not sufficient evidence; 
or that the man who says he never was at sea since he was a boy, 
came ashore from a voyage last Thursday, or sails to-morrow morn- 
ing. “ And that is a bad class of men, you see,” says Mr. Superin- 
tendent when he got out into the dark again, “ and very difficult to 
deal with, who, when he has made this place too hot to hold him, 
enters himself for a voyage as steward or cook, and is out of knowl- 
edge for months, and then turns up again worse than ever.” 

When we had gone into many such houses, and had come out 
(always leaving everybody relapsing into waiting for Jack), we 
started off to a singing- house where Jack was expected to muster 
strong. 

The vocalization was taking place in a long low room up stairs; 
at one end, an orchestra of two performers, and ajsmall platform; 
across the room, a series of open pews for Jack, with an aisle dov/n 
the middle; at the other end, a larger pew than the rest, entitled 
Snug, and reserved for mates and similar gi»od company. About 
the room, some amazing coffee-colored pictures varnished an inch 
deep, and some stuffed creatures in cases; dotted among the audi- 
ence, in Snug and out of Snug, the ” Professionals;” among them, 
the celebrated comic favorite, Mr. Banjo Bones, looking very hide- 
ous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; beside him, 
sipping rum-and water, Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural colors — a 
little heightened. 

It was a Friday night, and Frida}’" night was considered not a 
good night for Jack. At any rate. Jack did not show in very great 
force even here, though the house was one to which he much resorts, 
and where a good deal of money is taken. There was British Jack, 
a little maudlin and sleepy, lolling over his empty gdass, as if he 
were trying to read his fortune at the bottom; there was Loafing 
Jack of the Stars and Stripes, rather an uupronuRing customer, 
with his long nose, lank cheek, high cheek-bones, and nothing soft 
about him but his cabbagedeaf hat; there was Spanish Jack, "with 
curls of black hair, rings in his ears, and a knife not far from his 
hand, if you got into trouble with him ; there were Maltese Jack, 
and Jack of Sweden, and Jack the Finn, looming through the smoke 
of their pipes, and turning faces that looked as if they were carved 
out of dark wood, toward the young lady dancing the hornpipe; 
who found the platform so exceedingly small for it, that I had a 
nervous expectation of seeing her, in the backward steps, disappear 
through the window. Still, if all hands hsd been got together, 
they would not have more than half filled the room. Observe, how- 
ever. said Mr. Licensed Victualler, the host, that it was Friday 
night; and, besides, it was getting on for twelve, and Jack had gone 
aboard. A sharp and watchful man, Mr. Licensed Victualler, the 
host, with tight lips, and a complete edition of Cocker’s arithmetic 
In each eye. Attended to his business himself, he said. Always on 


TirE UKCOMMERCTAL TRAVELER. 


33 


trii’e Bpot. When he heard of lalent, trusted nobody’s account of it, 
but went off by rail to see it. If true lalent, engaged it. Pounds a 
week for talent — four pound five pound. Banjo Bones was iin- 
vloubted talent. Hear this instrument that was going to play— it 
was re.al taienti la truth, it was very good; a kind of piano-aC' 
cordion, played by a young girl of a delicate prettiness of face, fig- 
xire, and dress, that made the audience look coarser. She sang to 
the instrument, too; first, a song about village bells, and how they 
chimed; then a eong about how I went to sea; winding up with an 
imitation of the bag-pipes, which Mercantile Jack seemed to under- 
stand much the best. A good girl, said Mr. Licensed Victualler. 
Kept herself select, Sat.in Snug, not listening to the blandishments 
of Males, Lived with mother. Father dead. Once a merchant 
■well to do, but over- speculated himself. On delicate inquiry as to 
salary paid for item of talent under consideration, Mr. Victualler’s 
pounds dropped suddenly to shillings — still, it was a very comfort- 
able thing for a young person like that, you know; she only went 
on six times a night, and was only required to be there from six at 
night to twelve. What was more conclusive was, Mr. Victualler’s 
assurance that he “ never allowed any language, and never suffered 
-any disturbance. ” Sharpeye confirmed the statement, and the order 
that prevailed was the best proof of it that could have been cited. 
So, I came to the conclusion that poor Mercantile Jack might do (as 
i am afraid he does) much worse than trust himself to Mr. Victualler, 
and pass his evening here. 

But we had not yet looked, Mr. Superintendent— said Trampfoot, 
receiving us in the street again with military salute— for Dark Jack. 
True, Trampfoot. Ring the wonderful stick, rub the wonderful 
lantern, and cause the spirits of the stick and lantern to convey us 
ito the Darkies. 

There was no disappointment in the matter of Dark Jack; he was 
producible. Th^ Genii set us down in the little first floor of a little 
public-house, and there, in a stiflingly close atmosphere, were Dark 
Jack, and Dark' Jack^s deligiit, his white unlovely Kan, sitting 
•against the wail all around the room. Moie than that; Dark Jack’s 
delight ■w'as the least unlovely Nan, both morally and physically, 
that I saw thiit night. 

As a fiddle and tambourine band were sitting among the company, 
>Quickear suggested, why not strike up? “ Ah, la’ads!” _said a 
negro sitting by the door, gib the jebblem a darnse. Tak’ yah 
pardlers, jebblem, for '’um qnad-rill.” 

This w’as the landlord, in a Greek cap, and a dress half Greek and 
half English. As master o? the ceremonies, he called all the figures, 
and occasionally addressed himself parenthetically — after this man- 
laer. W hen he was very loud I use capitals. 

“ Now deni Hoyl One. Right and left. (Put a steam on, gib 
"um powder.) La-dies’ chail. Bal-loon say. Lemonade! Two. 
Ad-warnse and go back (gib ’ell a breakdown, shake it out o’ yer- 
selbs, keep amovil). S-wiNQ-coruers, Bal-Iooii say, and Lenlbnade! 
\^Hoy) Three. Gent come for’ard with a lady and go back, 
'hoppersite come for’ard and do what yer can. (Aeiohoy!) Bal- 
^oon say, and leetlc lemonade (Dat hair nigger by ’um fire-place 
bWnd ’a time, shake it out o’ yerselbs, gib ’ell a breakdown). Now 


34 


THE rHC0HME9lCIAL TEAVELER. 


den! H().y! Four! Lemonade. Bal-loon saj. and swin^. Fouk 
ladies meet in ’um middle, four gents goes round ’urn ladies, four 
gents passes out under ’um ladies’ arm, swing — and Lemonade; 
till ’a moosic can’t play no more! (Hoy, Hoy!)’^’ 

The male dancers were all blacks, and one was an unusually' 
powerful man of six feet three or four. The sound of their flat feet 
on the floor was as unlike the sound of white feet as their faces 
where unlike white faces. They toed and heeled, shuffled, double- 
shuffled, double-double-shuffled, covered the buckle, and t)eat the- 
time out rarely, dancing with a great show of teeth, arid with a child- 
ish good-humored enjoyment that was very prepossessing. They gen- 
erally kept together, these poor fellows, said Mr. Superintendent, 
because they were at a disadvantage singly, and liable to slights in. 
the neighboring streets. But, if 1 were Light Jack, i should 1^ very 
slow to interfere oppressively with Dark Jack, for, whenever I have 
liad to do with him, 1 have found him a simple and gentle fellow. 
Bearing this in mind, I asked his friendly permission to leave him 
restoration of beer in wishing him good-night, and thusit fell out that 
the last words 1 heard him say, as 1 blundered down the- worn stairs 
were, “ Jebblem's elth! Ladies drinks fust!” 

The night Was now well on into the morning, but for miles and 
hours we explored a strange world, where nobody ever goes to bed, 
but everybody is eternally sitting up, waiting for Jack. This ex- 
ploration was among a labyrinth of dismal courts and blind alleys,, 
called Entries, kept in wonderful order by the police, and in much 
better order than by the corporation; the want of gas-light in the 
most dangerous and infamous of these places being quite unworthy 
of so spirited a town. 1 need describe but two orthreeof the houses 
in which Jack was waited for as specimens of the rest. Many we 
attained by noisome passages so profoundly dark, that we felt our 
way with our hands. Not one of the whole number we visited was 
without this show of prints and ornamental crockery; the quantity 
of the latter set forth on little shelves and in little eases, in other- 
wise wretched rooms, indicating that Mercantile Jack must have an. 
extraordinary fondness for crockery, to necessitate so much of that 
bait in his traps. 

Among' such garniture, in one front parlor in the dead of the 
night four women were sitting by a fire. One of them had a male 
child in her arms. On a stool among them was a swarthy youth with 
a guitar, who had evidently stopped playing when our footsteps 
were heard. 

“Well! how do you do?” says Mr. Superintendent, looking 
about him. 

“ Pretty well, sir, and hope you gentlemen are going to treat us- 
ladies, now you have come to see us.” 

“ Order there!” says Sharpeye. 

“ None of that!” says Quickear. 

Trampfoot, outside, is heard to confide to himself, “ Meggis- 
son’s lot, this is. And a bad ’un!” 

“ Well!” says Mr. Superintendent, laying his hand on the shoul- 
der of the swarthy youth, “ and who’s this?” 

“ Antonio, sir.” 

“ And what does he do here?” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


35 


Come to give us a bit of music. No harm in that, 1 suppose?” 

“ A young foreign sailor?” 

Yes, he’s a Soaniard. You’re a Spaniard, ain’t you, Antonio?” 

Me Spanish.” 

” And he don’t know a word you say, not he! not if you was to 
talk to him ciil doomsday.” (Triumphantly, as if it redounded to 
the credit of the house.) 

” Will he play something?” 

” Oh yes, if you like! Play something, Antonio. You ain’t 
ashamed to play somethino;; are you?” 

The cracked guitar raises the feeblest ghost of a tune, and three of 
the women keep time to it with their heads, and the fourth with the 
■child. If Antonio has brought an}'- money in with him, I am afraid 
he will never take it out, and it even strikes me that his jacket and 
guitar may be in a bad way. But. the look of the young man and 
the tinkling of the instrument so change the place in a moment to 
a leaf out of ” Don Quixote,” that I wonder where his mule is sta- 
bled, undl he leaves oft. 

I am bound to acknowledge (ns it tends rather to my uncommer- 
cial confusion) that 1 occasioned a difficulty in this establishment, 
by having taken the ciiild in my arras. For, on my olfering to re- 
store it to a ferocious joker not unslimulated by rum, who claimed 
to be its mother, that unnatural parent put her hands behind her, 
and declined to accept it; backing into the fireplace, and very shrilly 
declaring, regardless of remonstrance from her friends, that she 
kuowed it to be Law, that whoever took a child from its mother of 
his own will was bound to stick to it. The uncommercial sense of 
being in a rather ridiculous position, with the poor little child be- 
ginning to be frightened, was relieved by my worthy friend and fel- 
low-constable, Trampfoot; who, laying hands on the article as if it 
were a bottle, passed it on to the nearest woman, and bade her 
” take hold of that.” As we came out the Bottle was passed to the 
ferocious joker, and they all sat down as before, including Antonio 
and the guitar. It was clear that there was no such thing as a 
nightcap to this baby’s head, and that even he never went to bed, 
but was always kept up— and would grow up, kept up — waiting for 
■Jack. 

Later still in (he night we came (by the court ” where the man 
was murdered,” and by the other court across the street, into which 
his body was dragged) to another parlor in another Entry, where 
•several people were sitting round a fire in just the same way. It 
was a dirty and offensive place, with some ragged clothes drying in 
it; but tlicre was a high shelf over the entrance-door (to be out of 
the reach of marauding hands, possibl}^, with two large white 
loaves on it, and a great piece of Cheshire cheese. 

” Weill” says Mr. Buperintendent, with a comprehensive look all 
round. How do you do?” 

” Not much to boast of, sir.” From the courtesy ing woman of 
ihe house. ” This is my good man, sir.” 

” You are not registered as a common Lodging House?” 

“No, sir.” * 

Sharpeye (in (he move-on tone) puts in the pertinent inquiry: 
” Theh why ain’t you?” 


36 


THE UHCOMMEECIAL TRAYELER. 


“ Ain’t got no one here, Mr. Sharpeye,” rejoined the woman and 
my good man together, “ but our own family/^ 

“ How many are you in family?” 

The woman takes time to count, under the pretense of coughing;^ 
and adds, as one scant of breath: “ Seven, sir.” 

But she has missed one, so Sharpeye, who knows all about it, 
says; 

“Here’s a young man here makes eight, who ain’t of your 
family?” 

“ No, Mr. Sharpeye, he’s a weekly lodger.” 

“ What does he do for a living?” 

The young man here takes the reply upon himself, and shortly 
answers, “ Ain’t got nothing to do.” 

The young man here is modestly brooding behind a damp apron, 
pendent from a clothesline. As 1 glance at him 1 become — but L 
don’t know why — vaguely reminded of Woolwich, Chatham, Ports- 
mouth, and Dover. When we get out, my respected fellow- 
constable Sharpeye, addressing Mr. Superintendent, saya: 

“ You noticed that young man, sir, in at Darby’s?” 

“ Yes. What is he?” 

“ Deserter, sir.”- 

Mi% Sharpeye further intimates that, when we Iiawe done with 
his services, he will step back and take that young man. Which in 
course of time he does; feeling at perfect ease about finding him, 
and knowing for a moral certainty that nobody in that region will 
be gone to bed. 

Later still in the night, we came to another parlor up a step or 
two from the street, which was very cleanly, neatly, even tastetully,,. 
kepi, and in which, set forth on a draped chest of drawers masking: 
the staircase, was such a profusion of ornamental crockery, that il 
would have furnished forth a handsome sale-booth at a fair. Ik 
backed up a stout old lady — H ogaktit drew her exact likeness mov& 
than once — and a boy who was carefully writing a copy in a copy- 
book. 

“ W'ell, ma’am, how do you do?” 

Sweetly, she can assure tlie dear gentleman, sweetly. Charm- 
ingly, charmingly. And^overjoyed to see us! 

“ Why, this is a strange time for this boy to be writing his cop}’-,. 
In the middle of the night!” 

“ So it is, dear gentlemen, Heaven bless your welcome faces, and 
send ye prosperous; but he bad been to the Play with a young frieucf. 
for his diversion, and he combinates his improyement with enter- 
tainment, by doing his schooR-writing afterward, God be good to. 
ye!” 

The copy admonished human nature to subjugate the fire of every- 
fierce desire. One might have thought it recommended stirring the-' 
fire, the old lady so approved it. There she sat, rosily beaming at 
the copy-book and the boy, and invoking showers of blessings on 
our heads, when we left her in the middle of the night,, waiting, for 
Jack. 

** Later still in the night, we came to a nauseous room with an eartb 
floor, into which the refuse scum of an alley trickled, 'fhe stencL 
of this habitation was abominable- the seeming poverty of it dk- 

» 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 37’ 

eased and dire. Yet here, again, was visitor or lodger — a man sit- 
ting before the fire, like the rest of them elsewhere, and apparently 
not distasteful to the mistress’s niece, who was also before the fire. 
The mistress herself had the mistortune of being in jail. 

Three weird old women of transcendent ghastliness were at 
needlework at a table in this room. Says Trampfootto First Witch, 
“ What are you making?” Says she, ” Money-bags.” 

” Wliat are you makiue:?” retorts Trampfoot, a little off his bal- 
ance. 

” Bags to hold your money,” says the witch, shaking her head, 
and setting her teeth; “ you as has got it.” 

She holds up a common cash-bag, and on the table is a heap of 
such bags. Witch Two laughs at us. Witch Three scowls at us. 
Witch sisterhood all, stitch, stitch. First witch has a red circle 
round each eye. I fancy it like the beginning of the development 
of a perverted diabolical halo, and that, when it spreads all round 
her head, she will die in the odor of devilry. 

Trampfoot wishes to be informed what First Witch has got behind 
the table, down by the side of hen* there? Witches Two and Three 
croak angrily; ‘‘ Show him the child!” 

She drags out a skinny little arm from a brown dust-heap on the 
ground. Adjured not lo disturb the child, she lets it drop again. 
Thus we find at last that there is one child in the world of Entrie& 
who goes to bed— if this be bed. 

Mr. Superintendent' asks how long are they going to work at those 
bags? 

How long? First Witch repeats. Going to have supper presently. 
See the cups and saucers, and the plates. 

” Late? Ay! But we has to ’am our supper afore we eats it!”’ 
But the other witches repeat this after First Witch, and take the 
Uncommercial measurement with their eyes, as for acharmed wind- 
ing-sheet. Some grim discourse ensues, referring to the mistress of 
the cave, who will be released from jail to-morrow. Witches pro- 
nounce Trampfoot “right there,” when he deems it a trying dis- 
tance for the old lady to Walk ; she shall be fetched by piece in a 
spring cart. 

As 1 took a parting look at First Witch in turning away, the red 
marks round her eyes seemed to have already grown larger, and she 
hungrily and thirstily looked out beyond me into the dark doorway, 
to see if Jack were there. For, Jack came even here, and the mis- 
tress had got into jail through deluding Jack. 

When I at last ended this night of travel, and got to bed, I failed 
to keep my mind on comfortable thoughts of Seamen’s Homes (not 
overdone with strictness), and improved dock regulations, giving- 
Jack greater benefit of fire and candle aboard ship, through my 
mind’s wandering among the vermin I had seen. Afterward tlio 
same vermin ran all over my sleep. Evermore, when on a breezy 
day 1 see Poor Mercantile Jack running into port with a fair wind 
under all sail, 1 shall think of the unsleeping host of devourers who 
never go to bed, and are always in their set traps waiting for him. 


38 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


VI. 

B.EFKESHMENTS FOK TRAVELERS. 

In the late hieh winds 1 was blown lo a great many places — and, 
indeed, wind or no wind, 1 generally have extensive transactions on 
hand in the article of Air — but 1 have not been blown to any En- 
glish place lately, and 1 very seldom have blown to any English 
place in my life, where 1 could get anything good to eat and drink 
in five minutes, or where, if 1 sought it, 1 was received with a wel- 
come. 

This is a curious thing to consider. But before (stimulated by 
my own experiences and the representations of many fellow-travel- 
ers of every uncommercial and commercial degree) 1 consider it 
tuiTher, 1 must utter a passing word of wonder concerning high 
winds. 

1 wonder why metropolitan gales always blow so hard at 'Wal- 
worth. I cannot imagine what Walworth has done to bring such 
windy punishment upon itself, as I never fail to find recorded in 
the newspapers when the wind has blown at all hard. Brixton 
seems to have something on its conscience; Peck ham suffers more 
than a virtuous Peckham might be supposed to deserve; the howl- 
ing neighborhod of Deptford figures largely in the accounts of the 
ingenious gentlemen who are out in every wind that blows, and to 
whom it is an ill high wind that blows no good; but, there can 
hardly be any Walworth lett by this time. It must surely be blown 
away. 1 have read of more* chimney-stacks and house-copings 
coming down with terrific smashes at Wal\yorth, and of more sacred 
edifices being nearly (not quite) blown out to sea from the same ac- 
cursed locality, than I have read of practiced thieves with the ap- 
pearance and manners of gentlemen — a popular phenomenon which 
never existed on earth out of fiction and a police report. Again! I 
wonder why people are always blown into the Surrey Canal, and 
into no other piece of water! Why do people get up early and go 
out in groups, to be blown into the Surrey Canal? Do they say to 
one another, “ Welcome death, so that we get into the news- 
papers ”? Even that would be an insufficient explanation, because 
even then they might sometimes put themselves in the way of being 
blown into the Regent’s Canal, instead of always saddling Surrey 
for the field. Some nameless policeman, too, is* constantly, on the 
slightest provocation, getting himself blown into this same Surrey 
Canal. Will Sir Richard j\1ayne see to it, and restrain that 
weak-minded and feeble-bodied constable? 

To resume the consideration of the curious question of Refresh- 
ment. I am a Briton, and, as such. 1 am aware that 1 never will 
be a slave — and yet I have a latent suspicion that there must be 
some slavery of wrong custom in this matter. 

I travel by railroad. 1 start from home at seven or eight in the 
morning, after breakfasting hurriedly. What with skimming over 
the open landscape, what with mining in the damp bowels of the 


THE UXCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 3^^ 

earth, what with banging, booming, and shrieking the scores of 
miles away, I am hungry when I arrive at the “ Refreshment ” sta- 
tion where 1 am expected. Please to observe, expended. 1 have 
said, 1 am hungry; perhaps I might say, with greater point and 
force, that 1 am to some extent exhausted, and that I need — in the 
expressive French sense of the word— to be restored. What is pro- 
vided for my restoration? The apartment that is to restore me is a 
wind-trap, cunningly set to inveigle all the draughts in that country- 
side, and to communicate a special intensity and velocity to them 
as they rotate in two hurricanes: one, about my wretched head; 
one, about my wretched legs. The training of the young ladies 
behind the counter who are to restore me, has been, from their in- 
fancy, directed to the assumption of a defiant dramatic show that I 
am not expected. It is in vain for me to represent to them, by my 
humble and conciliatory manners, that 1 wish to be liberal. It is in 
vain for me to represent to myself, for the encouragement of my 
sinking soul, that the j'oung ladies have a pecuniary interest in my 
arrival. Neither my reason nor my feelings can make head against 
the cold, glazed glare of eye with which I am assured that I am not 
expected, and not wanted. The solitary man among the bottles 
would sometimes take pity on me, if he dared, but he is powerless 
against the rights and mights of Woman. (Of the page I make no 
account, for, he is a boy, and therefore the natural enemy of Crea- 
tion.) Chilling fast in the deadly tornadoes to which my upper and 
lower extremities are exposed, and subdued by the moral disadvan- 
tage at which I stand, I turn my disconsolate eyes on the refresh- 
ments that are to restore me. I find that I must either scald my 
throat by insanely ladling into it, against time and for no t\'ager, 
brown hot water stifi'ened with flour; or I must make myself flaky 
and sick with Banbury cake; or, I must stuff into my delicate or- 
ganization a currant pincushion which I know will swell into im- 
measurable dimensions when it has got there; or, I must extort from 
an iron-bound quarry, with a fork, as if 1 were farming an inhospitable 
soil, some glutinous lumps of gristle and grease, called pork-pie. 
While thus forlornly occupied, I find that the depressing banquet 
on the table is, in every phase of its profoundly unsatisfactor}’’ char- 
acter, so like the banquet at the meanest and shabbiest of evening 
parties, that I begin to think I must have “ brought down ” to sup- 
per the old lady unknown, blue with cold, who is setting her teeth 
on edge with a cool orange at my elbow — that the pastry-cook 
who has compounded for the company on the lowest terms per head, 
is a fraudulent bankrupt redeeming his contract with the stale 
stock from his window— that, for some unexplained reason, the 
family giving the party have become my mortal foes, and have 
given it on purpose to affront me. Or, I fancy that I am “ break- 
ing up ” again at the evening conversazione at school, charge two- 
and-sixpence in the half-year’s bill; or breaking down again at that 
celebrated evening party given at Mrs. Bogles’s boarding-house 
when I was a boarder there, on which occasion Mrs. Bogles was 
taker in execution by a branch of the legal profession who got in as 
the harp, and was removed (with the keys and subscribed capital) 
to a place of durance, half an hour prior to the commencement of 
the festivities. 


40 


THE UisCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


Take another case. 

Mr. Grazin^lands, of the Midland Counties, came to London by 
railroad one morning’last week accompanied by the amiable and 
fascinating Mrs. Grazinglands. Mr. G. is a gentleman of a comfort- 
^al)le property, and had a little business to transact at the Bank of 
England, which required the concurrence and signature of Mrs. G. 
Their business disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Grazinglands viewed the 
Royal Exchange, and the exterior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The 
spirits of Mrs. Grazinglands then gradually beginning to flag, Mr. 
•Grazinglands (who is the tenderest of husbands) remarked with 
sympaihy, “ Arabella, my dear, 1 fear you are taint.” Mrs. Graz- 
inglands replied, ” Alexander, I am ratlier faint; but don’t mind 
me, I shall be better presently.” Touched by the feminine meek- 
ness of this answer, Mr. Grazinglands looked in at a pastry-cook’s 
window, hesitating as to the expediency ot lunching at that estab- 
lishment. He beheld nothing to eat but butter in various forms, 
slightly charged with jars, and languidly frizzling over tepid water. 
Two ancient turtle shells, on which was inscribed the legend 

Soups,” decorated a glass partition within, inclosing a stuffy 
alcove, from which a ghastly mockery of a marriage breakfast 
•spread on a rickety table, warned the terrified traveler. An oblong 
box of stale and broken pastry at reduced prices, mounted on a stool, 
ornamented the doorway; and two high chairs, that looked as if 
•they were performing on stilts, embellished the counter. Over the 
whole a young lady presided, whose gl .omy haughtiness, as she 
surveyed the street, announced a deep-seated grievance against so- 
ciety, and an implacable determination to be avenged. From a 
beetle-haunted kitchen below this institution, fumes arose, suggestive 
of a class of soup which Mr. Grazinglands know, from painful ex- 
perience, enfeebles the mind, distends the stomach, forces itself 
into the complexion, and tries to ooze out at the eyes. As he decided 
•against entering, and turned away, Mrs. Grazinglands, becoming 
perceptibly weaker, repeated, ” I’m rather faint, Alexander; but 
^on’t mind me.” Urged to new efforts by these words of resigna- 
tion, Mr. Grazinglands looked in at a cold and floury baker’s shop, 
where utilitarian buns, unrelieved by a curiaut, consorted with hard 
biscuit, a stone' filter of cold water, a hard pale clock, and a hard 
little old woman with flaxen hair, of an undeveloped farinaceous 
aspect, as if she had been fed upon seeds. He might have entered 
•even here, but for the timely remembrance coming upon him that 
J airing’s was but round the corner. 

Now, Jairing’s being an hotel for families and gentlemen, in high, 
repute .among the midland counties, Mr.- Grazinglands plucked up 
a great spirit when he told Mrs. Grazinglands she should have a 
chop there. That lady likewise felt that she was going to 'See Life, 
Arriving on that gay and festive scene, they found"^ the second 
waiter, in a flabby undress, cleaning tiie windows of the empty 
coffee-room; and the first waiter, denuded of his white tie, making 
up his cruets behind the Post-Office Directory. The latter (who 
took theni in hand) was greatly put out by their patronage, and 
showed his mind to be troubled by a sense of the pressing necessity 
of instantly smuggling Mrs. Grazinglands into the obscurest corner 
of the building. This slighted lady (who is the pride of her division. 

m 


THE UNCOMMEllCIAL TRAVELER. 


41 


of the coiintj) was immediately conve 3 ^ed, by several dark passages, 
and up and down several steps, into a penitential apartment at ihe 
back of the house, where five invalided old plate warmers leaned up 
against one another under a discarded old melancholy sideboard,, 
and where the wintry leaves of all the dining-tables in the house lay 
thick. Also, a sofa, of incomprehensible form regarded from any 
sofane point of view, murmured, “Bed;” while an air of mingled 
^ fluffiness and heel taps added, “ Second Waiter’s.” Secreted in this- 
dismal hold, objects of a mysterious distrust and suspicion, Mr. 
Grazinglands and his charming partner waited twenty minutes for 
the smoke (for it never came to a fire), twenty-five minutes for the 
— sherry, half an hour for the table-cloth, forty minutes for the knives 
and forks, three-quarters of an hour for the chops, and an hour for 
the potatoes. On settling the little bill— which was not much more 
than the day’s pay of a Lieutenant in the navy — Mr. Grazinglands 
look heart to remonstrate against the general quality and cost of 
his reception. To whom the waiter replied, substantially, that 
Jairing’s made it a merit to have accepted him on any terms; 
“ for,” added the waiter (unmistakably coughing at Mrs. Grazing- 
lands, the pride of her division ot the county), “ when individuals 
is not staying in the ’Ouse, their favors is not as a rule looked upon 
as making it worth Mr. Jairing’s while; nor is it, indeed, a style of 
business Jairing wishes.” FinalhL Mr. and Mrs. Grazinglands 
passed out of Jairing’s Hotel for Families and Gentlemen in a stale 
of the greatest depression, scorned by the bar; and did not recover 
their self-respect for several days. 

Or, take another case. Take your own case. 

You are going off by railway from any Terminus. You have 
twenty minutes for dinner before you go. You want your dinner,^ 
and, like Doctor Johnson, sir, you like to diue. You present to 
your mind a picture of the refreshment-table at that terminus. The 
conventional shabby evening-party supper — accepted as the model 
for all termini and all refreshment stations, because it is the last re- 
past known to this state of existence of which any human creature 
would partake, but in the direst extremity — sickens your contempla- 
tion, and your words are these “ 1 cannot dine on stale sponge-cakes- 
that turn *to sand in the month. 1 cannot dine on shining brown 
patties, composed of unknown animals within, and offering to my 
view the device of an indigestible star-fish in leaden pie-crust with- 
out. I cannot dine on a sandwich that has long been pining under 
an exhausted receiver. I cannot dine on barley-sugar. I cannot 
dine on Toffee.” You repair to the nearest hotel, and arrive, agi- 
tated, in the coffee-room. 

It is a most astonishing fact that the waiter is very cool to you. 
Account for it how you may, smooth it over how you will, you 
cannot denj’’ that he is cold to you. He is not glad to see you, he 
does not want you, he would much rather you hadn’t come. He 
opposes to jmur flushed condition an immovable composure. As 
if this w’ere not enough, another waiter, born, as it would seem, ex- 
pressly to look at you in this passage of your life, stands at a little 
distance, with his napkin under his arm and his hands folded, look- 
ing at you with all his might. You impress on your waiter that you 
have ten minutes for dinner, and he proposes that you shall begin 


42 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


with a bit of fish which will be ready in twenty. That proposal de- 
clined, he sugo-ests— as a neat originality — “ a weal or mutton cut- 
let.” You close with either cutlet, any cutlet, anything. He goes 
leisurely, behind a door, and calls down some unseen shaft. A 
vcntriloquial dialogue ensues, tending finally (o the effect that 
weal only is available on the spur of the moment. You anxiously 
callout. “Veal, then!” Your waiter, having settled that point, 
returns to array your table-cloth, with a table napkin folded cocked- 
hat-wise (slowly, for something out of window engages his eyes), a 
white wine-glass, a green wine-glass, a blue finger-glass, a tumbler, 
and a powerful field battery of fourteen casters with nothing in 
them; or, at all events — which is enough for your purpose — with 
nothing in them that will come out. All this time the other waiter 
looks at you — with an air of mental comparison and curiosity, now, 
as if it had occurred to him that you are rather like his brother. 
Half your time gone, and nothing come but the jug of ale and the 
bread, you implore your waiter to “see after that cutlet, waiter; 
pray ilo!” He cannot go at once, for he is carrying in seventeen 
pounds of .American cheese for you to finish with, and a small 
Landed Estate of celery and water cresses. The other waiter 
-changes his legs, and takes a new view of you— doubtfully, now, as 
if he had rejected the resemblance to his brother, and had begun to 
think you more like his aunt or his grandmother. Again you be- 
seech your waiter, with pathetic indignation, to “ see after that 
cutlet!” He steps out to see after it, and by and by, when you are 
going away without it, comes back with it. Even then he will not 
take the sham silver cover off without a pause for a flourish, and a 
look at the musty cutlet as if he were surprised to see it — which 
cannot possibly be the case, he must have seen it so often before. A 
sort of fur has been produced upon its surface by the cook’s art, 
and ill a sham silver vessel, staggering on two feet instead of three, 
is a cutaneous kind of sauce, of brown pimples and pickled cucum- 
ber. You order the bill, but your waiter cannot bring your bill 
yet, because he is bringing, instead, three flinty-hearted potatoes 
and two grim heads of broccoli, like the occasional ornaments on 
area railings, badly boiled. You know that you will never come to 
this pass, any more than to the cheese and the celery, and you im- 
peratively demand your bill; but, it takes time to get, even when 
gone for, because your waiter lias to communicate with a lady who 
lives behind a sash-window in a corner, and who appears to have to 
refer to several Ledgers before she can make it out— as if you had 
been slaying there a year. You become distracted to get away, and 
- the other waiter, once more changing his leg, still looks at you — 
but suspiciously, now, as if you had begun to remind him of the 
party who took the great-coats last winter. Your bill at last 
brought and paid, at the rate of sixpence a mouthful, your waiter 
reproachfully reminds you that “ attendance is not charged for a 
single meal,” and you have to search in all .your pockets for six- 
pence more. He has a worse opinion of you than ever, when you 
have given it to him, and lets you out into' the street with the air of 
one saying to himself, as you cannot doubt he is, “ I hope we shall 
never see you here again.” 

Or take any other of the numerous traveling instances in which, 


THE UHCOMHERCIAL TRAVELER. 


45 

■with more time at your disposal, you are, have been, or may bo 
equally ill served. Take the old-established Bull’s Head, with its 
old-established knife-boxes on its old-established sideboards, its old- 
established flue under its old-established four-post bedsteads in its 
old-established airless rooms, its old-established frouziness up-staira 
and down-stairs, its old-established cookery, and its old-established 
principles of plunder. Count up your injuries in its side-dishes of 
ailinK sweetbreads in white poultices, of apothecaries’ powders in 
rice for curry, of pale stewed bits of calf ineffectually relyiny for 
an adventitious interest on forcemeat balls. You have had experi- 
ence of the old-established Bull’s Head stringy fowls, with lower 
extremities like wooden legs sticking up out ot the dish; of its 
cannibalic boiled mutton, gushing horribly among its capers when 
carved; of its little dishes of pastry— roofs of spermaceti ointment,, 
erected over half an apple or four gooseberries. Well for y’ou if 
you have yet forgotten the old-established Bull’s Head fruity port; 
whose reputation was gained solely by the old-established price the 
Bull’s Head put upon it, and by the old-established air with which 
the Bull’s Head set the glasses and D’Oyleys on, and held that 
Liquid Gout to the three-and-sixpenny wax candle, as if its old- 
established color hadn’t come from the dyer’s. 

Or, lastly, take, to finish with, two cases that we all know every 
day. 

We all know the new hotel near the station, where it is always 
gusty, going up the lane which is always muddy, where w^e are 
sure to arrive at night, and where we make the gas start awfully 
when we open the front-door. We all know the flooring of the 
passages and staircases that is too new, and the walls that are too 
new, and the house that is haunted by the ghost of mortar. We all 
know the doors that have cracked, and the cracked shutters through 
which we get a glimpse ot the disconsolate moon. We all know 
the new people who have come to keep the new hotel, and who 
wdsh they had never come, and who (Inevitable result) wish we had 
never come. We all know how much too scant and smooth and 
bright the new furniture is, and how it has never settled down, and 
cannot tit itself into right places, and will get into w’rong places. 
We all know how the gas. being lighted, show's maps of Damp upon 
the walls. We all know how^ the ghost of mortar passes into our 
sandwich, stirs our negus, goes up to bed with us, ascends the pale 
bedroom chimney, and prevents the smoke from following. We 
all know how a leg of our chair comes off at breakfast in the morit- 
ing, and how' the dejected waiter attributes the accident to a general 
greenness pervading the establishment, and informs us, in reply to 
a local inquiry', that he is thankful to say he is an entire stranger 
in that part of the country, and is going back to his own connection 
on SMlurdayr. 

We all know, on the other hand, the great station hotel belonging^ 
to the company of proprietors, which has suddenly sprung up in 
the back outskirts of anyplace we like to name, and where we look 
out of our palatial windows, at little back-yards and gardens, old 
summer houses, fowl-houses, pigeon-traps, and pigsties. We all 
know tliis hotel, in which we can get anything we want, after its 
kind, for money; but where nobody is glad to see us, or sorry ta 


44 ' THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

see us, or minds (our bill paid) whether we come or ^o, or how, or 
when, or why, or cares about us. We all know this hotel, where 
we have no individuality, but put ourselves into the general post, 
as it were, and are sorted and disposed of according to our division. 
We all know that we can get on very well indeed at such a place, 
but still not perfectly well; and this maybe because the place is 
largely wholesale, and there is a lingering persona), retail interest 
within us that asks to be satished. 

To sum up. My uncommercial traveling has not yet brought me 
to the conclusion that we are close to perfection in these matters. 
And just as I do not believe that the end of the world will ever be 
near at hand, so long as any of the very tiresome and arrogant peo- 
ple who constantly predict that catastrophe are left in it, so I shall 
have small faith in the Hotel Millennium while any of the uncom- 
fortable superstitions I have glanced at remain in existence. 


VII. 

TRAYELINO ABROAD. 

I GOT into the traveling chariot— it was of German make, roomy, 
lieavy, and unvarnished — 1 gut into the traveling chariot, pulled up 
the steps after me, shut myself in with a smart bang of the door, 
and gave the word “ Go on!” 

Immediately all that W. and S. W'^. division of London began to 
slide away at a pace so lively, that I was over the river, and past 
the Old Kent Road, and out on Blackheath, and even ascending 
Shooter’s Hill, before 1 had time to look about me in the carriage, 
like a collected traveler. 

I had two ample Imperials on the roof, other fitted storage for 
luggage in front, and other up behind; I had a net for books over- 
head, great pockets to all the windows, a leathern pouch or two 
hung up for odds and ends, and a reading-lamp fixed in the back of 
the chariot, in case I should be benighted. I was amply provided 
in all respects, and had no idea where 1 was going (which was de- 
lightful), except that I was going abroad. 

So smooth was the old high-road, and so fresh were the horses, 
and so fast went 1, that it was midway between Gravesend and 
Rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white- 
sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when 1 noticed by the wayside a 
very queer small boy. 

” Holloa!” said 1 to the very queer small boy, “ where do you 
live?” 

” At Chatham,” says he. 

‘‘ What do you do there?” says I. 

• ”1 go to school,” says he. 

I took him up in a moment, and we went on. Presently the 
very queer small boy says, “'This is Gads-hill we are coming to, 
where Falstaff went out to rob those travelers, and ran away.” 

“ Toil know something about Falstaff, eh?” said I. 

“ All about him,” said ihe very queer small boy. “ I am old (I 
am nine), and I read all sorts of books. But do let us stop at the 
top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


45 


" You admire that house,” said 1. 

Bless you, sir,” said the very queer small boy, “when I was 
T:iot more than half as old as niue,* it used to be a treat for me to be 
brought to look at it. And, now 1 am nine, I come by myself to 
look at it. And ever since 1 can recollect, my father, seeing me so 
fond of it, has often said to me, ‘ If you were to be very persever- 
ing, and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in 
it.’ Though that’s impossible!” said the very queer small boy, 
drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window 
with all his might. 

1 was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy; 
for that house happens to be my house, and 1 have reason to believe 
that what he said was true. 

Well! 1 made no halt there and 1 soon dropped the very queer 
small boy and went on. Over the road where the old Romans used 
to march, over the road where the old Canterbury pilgrims used to 
go, over the road where the traveling trains of the old imperious 
priests and princes used to jingle on horseback between the Conti- 
nent and this Island through the mud and water, over the road 
where Shakespeare hummed to himself, “ Blow, blow, thou winter 
wind,” as he sat in the saddle at the gate of th#-inn yard noticing 
the carriers; all among the cherry orchards, apple orchards, corn- 
fields, and hop-gardens; so went 1, by Canterbury to Dover. There 
the sea was tumbling in, with deep sounds, after dark, and the re- 
volving French light on Cape Grisnez was seen regularly bursting 
out and becoming obscured, as if the head of a gigantic light-keeper 
In an anxioiis state of mind were interposed every half-minute, to 
look how it was burning. 

Early in the morning 1 was on the deck of the steam-packet, and 
we were aiming at the bar in the usual intolerable manner, and tJie 
bar was aiming at us in the usual intolerable manner, and the bar 
got by far the best of it, and we got by far the worst-all in the 
msual intolerable manner. 

But, when 1 was clear of the Custom House on the other side, 
and when 1 began to make the dust fly on the thirsty French roads, 
and when the twigsome trees by the waysitle (which, 1 suppose, 
never will grow leafy, for they never did) guarded here and there a 
dusty soldier, or field laborer, baking on a heap of broken stones, 
sound asleep In a fiction of shade, I began to recover my traveling 
spirits. Coming upon the breaker of the broken stones, in a hard 
hot shining hat, on which the sun played at a distance as on ^ 
burning-glass, 1 felt that now, indeed, I was in the dear old France 
■of my aftection. I should have known it, without the well-remem- 
bered bottle of rough ordinary wine, the cold roast fowl, the loaf, 
tmd the pinch of salt, on which 1 lunched with unspeakable satis- 
faction, from one of the stufl!ed pockets of the chariot. 

I must have fallen asleep after lunch, for, when a bright face 
looked in at the window, I started, and said: 

“ Good God, Louis, I dreamed you were dead!” 

My cheerful servant laughed and answered: 

“ Me? Not at all, sir.” 

“ How glad 1 am to wake! What are we doing, Louis?” 

We go to take relay of horses. Will you walk up the hill?” 


46 


THE UHCOMMEliCLAL TRAVELER. 


“ Certainly.” 

Welcome the old French hill, tvith the old French lunatic (not m 
the most distant degree related to Sterne’s Maria) living In a 
thatched dog-kennel, half-way up, and flying out with his crutch 
and his big head and extended nightcap, to be beforehand with the 
old men and women exhibiting crippled children, and with the 
children exhibiting old men and women, ugly and blind, who 
always seemed by resurrectionary process to be recalled out of the 
elements for the sudden peopling of the solitude! 

” It is well,” said I, scattering among them what small coin I 
had; ” here comes Louis, and 1 am quite roused from my nap.” 

We journey on again, and 1 welcomed every new assurance that 
France stood where 1 had left it. TJiere were the posting-houses, with 
their archways, dirty stable-yards, and clean postmasters’ wives, 
bright women of business, looking on at the putting-to of the 
horses; there were the postilions counting what money they got into 
their hats, and never making enough of it; there were the standard 
population of gray horses of Flanders descent, invariably biting one 
another when they got a chance ; there were the fleecy sheep skins, 
looped on over their uniforms by the postilions, like bibbed aprons, 
when it blew and rained; there were their jack-books, and their 
cracking whips; there were the cathedrals that 1 got out to see, as 
under some cruel bondage, in nowise desiring to see them; there 
were the little towns that appeared to have no reason for being 
towns, since most of their houses were to let, and nobody could be 
induced to look at them, except the people who couldn’t let them, 
and had nothing else to do but look at them all day. I lay a nigbt 
upon the road, and enjoyed delectable cookery of potatoes, and some 
other sensible things, adoption of which at home would inevitably 
be shown to be fraught with ruin, somehow or other, to that rickety 
national blessing, the British farmer; and at last I was rattled, like 
a single pill in a box, over leagues of stones, until — madly crack- 
ing, plunging, and flourishing two gray tails about— I made my 
triumphal entry into Paris. 

At Paris 1 took afl upper apartment for a few days in one of the 
hotels of the Rue de Rivoli; my front windows looking into the 
garden of the Tuileries (where the principal difference between the 
nursemaids and the flowers seemed to be that the former were 
locomotive, and the latter not): my back windows looking at 
all the other back windows in the hotel, and deep down into 
a paved yard, where my German chariot had retired under a 
tight-fitting archway, to all appearance for life, and where 
bells rang all day without anybody’s minding them but certain 
chamberlains with feather brooms and green baize caps, who here 
and there leaned out of some high window placidly looking down, 
and where neat waiters with trays on their left shoulders passed and 
repassed from morning to night. 

Whenever I am at Paris, I am dragged by invisible force into the 
Morgue. 1 never want to go there, but am always pulled there. 
One Christmas-day, when I would rather have been anywhere else, 
1 was attracted in, to see an old gray man lying all alone on his cold 
bed, with a tap of water turned on over his gray hair, and running, 
drip, drip, drip, down his wretched face unil it got to the corner of 


THE Ul^COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


47 


his moutb, where it took a turn, and made him look sly. One New 
Tear’s morning (by the same token, the sun was shining outside, 
and there was a mountebank balancing a feather on his nose, 
"vvithin a yard of the gate), I was pulled in again to look at a flaxen - 
haired boy ot eighteen, with a heart hanging on his breast — “ from 
his mother,” was engraven on it — who had come into the net across 
the river, with a bullet wound in his fair forehead, and his hands 
cut with a knife, but whence or how was a blank mystery. This 
time 1 was forced into the same dread place, to see a large, dark 
man whose disfigurement by water was in a frightful manner comic, 
and wiiose expression was that of a prizefighter who hud closed his 
e^'Clids under a heavy blow, but was going immediately to open 
them, shake his head, and “come up smiling.” Oh, what this 
large, dark man cost me in that bright city! 

it was very hot weather, and he was none the better for that, and 
I w'as muck* the worse. Indeed, a very neat and pleasant little 
woman, wit h the key of her lodging on her forefinger, who had been 
showing him to her little girl while she and tlie child ate sweet- 
meats, observed monsieur, looking poorly as %ve came out together, 
and asked monsieur, witlr her wondering little eyebrows prettily 
raised, if there were anything the matter? Faintly replying in the 
negative, Dtonsieur crossed the road to a wine-shop, got some 
brandy, and resolved to freshen himself with a dip in the great float- 
ing bath on the river. 

The bath was crowded, in the usual airy manner, by a male popu- 
lation in striped draw'ers of various gay colors, who walked up and 
down aim-in-arm, drank coffee, smoked cigars, sat at little tables, 
conversed politelj'' with the damsels who dispensed the tow’els, and 
every now and then pitched themselves into the river head-foremost, 
and came out again to repeat this social routine. 1 made haste to 
participate in the water part of the entertainments, and was in the 
full enjoyment of a delightful bath, when all in a moment 1 was 
seized with an unreasonable idea that the large dark body was float- 
ing straight at me. 

I was out of the river, and dressing instantly. In the shock I had 
taken some water into my mouth, and it turned me sick, for I fan- 
cied that the contamination of the creature was in it. I had got back 
to my cool darkened room in the hotel, and was lying on a sofa 
there, before I began to reason with m.yself. 

Of course I knew perfectly well that the large dark creature was 
stone dead, and that I should no more come upon him out of 
the place where I had seen him dead, than 1 should come upon 
the cathedral of Notre-Dame in an entirely new situation. What 
troubled me was the picture of the creature: and that had so curi- 
ously and strongly painted itself upon my brain, that 1 could not 
get rid of it until it was worn out. 

I noticed the peculiarities of this possession while it was a real 
discomfort to me. That very day, at dinner, some morsel on my 
plate looked like a piece of him, and I was glad to get up and go 
out. Later in the evening, 1 was walKing along the Rue St. 
Honore, when I saw a bill at a public room lliere, announcing . 
small-sword exercise, broad-sword exercise, wrestling, and other 
such feats. 1 went in, and, some of the sword-play being very 


48 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


skillful, remained. A specimen of our own national sport, the British 
Boaxe, was announced to be given at the close of the evening, lii 
an evil hour, I determined to wait for. this Boaxe, as became s 
Britain. It was a clumsy specimen (executed b}’’ two English 
grooms out of place), but one of the combatants, receiving a straight 
right-hander with the glove between the eyes, did exactly what the 
large dark creature in the 3Iorgue had seemed going to do— and 
finished me for that night. 

There was rather a sickly smell (not at all an unusual fragrance in 
Paris) in the little ante-room of my apartment at the hotel. The 
large dark creature in the Morgue was by no direct experience 
associated with my sense of smell, because, when I came to Sf 
knowledge of him, he lay behind a wall of thick plate-glass, as good 
as a wall of steel or marble for that matter. Yet the wliifi of the 
room never failed to reproduce him. What v^as more curious was., 
the capiiciousness with which his portrait seemed to light itself up 
in my mind elsewhere. I might be walking in the Palais Royal,, 
lazily enjoying the shop-windows, and might be regaling myself 
witli one of the ready-made clothes shops that are set out there.. 
My eyes, wandering over impossible-waisted dressin.g -gowns and 
luminous waistcoats, would fall upon the master, or She shopman,, 
or even tlie very dummy at the door, and would suggest to me„. 
“ Something like liim!” — and instantly 1 was sickened again. 

This would happen at the theater, in the same manner. Often it 
would happen in the street, when I certainly was not looking for 
the likeness, and when probably there was no likeness there. It 
was not because the creature was dead that I was so haunted, be- 
cause 1 know that I might have been (and I know it because I have 
been) equally attended by the image of a living aversion'. This 
lasted about a week. The picture did not fade by degrees, in the 
sense that it became a whit less forcible and disiinet, but in the 
sense that it obtruded itself less and less frequently. The experi- 
ence may be worth considering by some who have the care of chil- 
dren. It would be difficult to overstate the intensity and accuracy 
of an intelligent child’s observation. At that impressible time of 
life, it must sometimes produce a fixed impression. If the fixed im- 
pression be of an object terrible to the child, it will be (for want of 
reasoning upon) inseparable from great fear. Force the child at 
such a lime, be Spartan with it, send it into the dark against its 
will, leave it in a lonely bedroom against its will, and you had bet- 
ter murder it. 

On a bright morning 1 rattled away from Paris in tlie German 
chariot, and left the large dark creature behind me for good. I 
ought to confess, though, that I had been drawn back to the Morgue 
after he was put underground, to look at his clothes, and that L 
found them frightfully like him — particularly his boots. However, 
1 rattled away for Switzerland, looking forward, and not back- 
ward, and so we parted company. 

Welcome again the long long spell of France, with the queer 
, country inns, full of vases of flowers and clocks, in the dull little 
towns, and with the little population not at all dull on the little 
Boulevard in the evening, under the little trees! Welcome Monsieuc 
the Cure walking alone in the eirrly morning a short w’ay out of the 


THE UHCOilMERCIAL TRAVELER. 49 

town, reading that eternal Breviary of yours, which surely mij^lii 
be almost read without hook by liiis. time! Welcome Monsieur tl.e 
Cure, lalef in the day, jolting through the highway dust (as if you; 
had already ascended to the cloudy region), in a very big-headed 
cabriolet, wMth the dried mud of a dozen winters on it. Welcome 
again Monsieur the Cure, as we exchange salutations, ,you straighten- 
ing your back to look at the German chariot; while picking in your 
little village garden a vegetable or two for the day’s soup; 1 look- 
ing out of the German chariot window in that delicious traveler’s 
trance wdiich knows no cares, no yesterdays, no to-morrows, noth- 
ing but the passing objects and the passing scents and sounds! And 
BO 1 came, in due course of delight, to Strasbourg, where 1 passed 
a wet Sunday e’vening at a window, while an idle trifle of a vaude- 
ville was played for me at the opposite house. 

How such a large house came to have only three people living in 
it was its own affair. There were at least a score of windows in 
its high roof alone; how many in its grotesque front, 1 soon gave up 
counting. The owner was a shopkeeper, byname Straudenheim; 
by trade — 1 couldn’t make out what by trade, for he had forborne 
to write that up, and his shop was shut. 

At first, as I looked at Straudenheim’s through the steadily-falling^ 
rain, 1 set him up in business in the goose-liver line. But, inspec- 
tion of Btraudenheim, who became visible at a window on the 
second floor, convinced me that there w^as something more precious 
than liver in the case. He w’ore a black velvet skull-cap, and looked 
usurious and rich. A large-lipped, pear-nosed old man, with white 
hair and keen eyes, though near-sighted. He was writing at a desk, 
was Btraudenheim, and ever and again left off ■writing, put his perr 
in his mouth, and went through actions with his right iiaud, like a 
man steadying piles of cash. Five-franc pieces, Strandenheim, or 
golden Napoleons? A jewmler, Btraudenheim, a dealer in money, a 
diamond merchant, or what? 

Below Btraudenheim, at a’^\’indowon the first floor, sat his house- 
keeper — far from young, but of a comely presence, suggestive of a 
well-matured foot and ankle. She was cheerily dressed, had a fan 
in her hand, and wore large gold ear-iings and a large gold cross. 
She would have been out lioliday-making (as 1 settled it) but for 
the pestilent rain. Strasbourg had given up holiday-making, for 
that once, as a bad job, because the rain was jerking in gushes out 
of the old roof-spouts, and running in a brook down the middle of 
the street. The housekeeper, her arms folded on her bosom aud 
her fan tapping her chin, was bright and smiling at her open win- 
dow, but Otherwise Straudenheim’s house-front was very dreary. 
The housekeeper’s was the only open window in it; Btraudenheim 
kept himself close, though it was a sultry evening when air is pleas- 
ant, and though the rain had brought into the town that vague re- 
freshing smell of grass which rain does bribg in the summer-time. 

The dim appearance of a man at Straudenheim’s shoulder inspired 
me with a misgiving that somebody had ceme to murder that flour- 
ishing merchant for the wealth with which I had handsomely en- 
dowed him; the rather as it -was an excited man, lean and long of 
figure, and evidently stealthy of foot. But he conferred with 
Straudenheim instead of doing him a mortal injur}^ and then they 


50 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


both softly opened the other window of that room — which was im- 
mediately over the housekeeper’s— and tried to see her by looking 
down. And my opinion of Straudenheim was much low^ered when 
I saw that eminent citizen spit out of window, clearly with the hope 
of spitting on the housekeeper. 

The unconscious housekeeper fanned herself, tossed her head, and 
laughed. Though unconscious of Straudenheim, she was conscious 
of somebody else— of me? — there was nobody else. 

After leaning so far out of window that 1 confidently expected to 
see their heels tilt up, Straudenheim and the lean man drew their 
Leads in and shut the window. Presently the house-door secretly 
opened, and they slowly and spitefully orept forth into the pouring 
rain. They w'ere coming over to me (1 thought) to demand satis- 
faction for my looking at the housekeeper, when they plunged into 
a recess in the architecture under my window, and dragged out the 
puniest of little soldiers, begirt with the most innocent of little 
swords. The tall glazed head-dress of this warrior Straudenheim 
instantly knocked off, and out of it fell two sugar-sticks, and three 
or four large lumps of sugar. 

The warrior made no effort to recover his property or to pick up 
his shako, but he looked with an expression of attention at Strau- 
denhehn when he kicked him five times, and also at the lenn man 
when he kicked him five times, and again at Straudenheim when he 
tore the breast of his (the w’arrioi ’s) little coat open, and shook all 
his ten fingers in his face, as if they were ten thousand. When these 
outrages had been committed, Straudenheim and his man w^ent into 
the house again, and barred the door. A wmnderful circumstance 
w^as. that the housekeei)er, who saw it all (and w'ho could have taken 
six such w^ariiors to her buxom bosom at once) only fanned herself 
and laughed as- she had laughed before, and seemed to have no 
opinion about it, one way or other. 

But, the chief effect of the drama w’as the remarkable vengeance 
taken by the little warrior. Left alone in the rain, he picked up his 
shako; put it on, all wet and dirty as it W’as; retired into a court, 
of which Straudenheim’s house formed the corner; w’ heeled about: 
and, bringing his two forefingers close to the ton of his nose, rubbed 
them over one another, crosswise, in derision, defiance, and con- 
tempt of Straudenheim. Although Straudenheim could not possibly 
be supposed to be conscious of this strange proceeding, it so inflated 
and comforted the little w'arrior’s soul, that twice he w’eut away, 
and twice came back into the court to repeat it, as though it must 
goad his enemy to madness. Not only that, but he afterward came 
back with two other small warriors, and they all three did it to- 
gether. Not only that— as I live to tell the tale!— but juSt as it was 
falling quite dark, the three came back, bringine: with them a huge 
bearded Sapper, whom they moved, by recital of the original w^rong, 
to go through the same performance, with the same complete ab- 
sence of all possible knowledge of it on the part of Straudenheim. 
And then they all went away arm-in arm, singing. 

1 went away too, in tlie German chariot, at sunrise, and rattled 
on, day after day, like one in a sweet dream; with so many clear 
little bells on the harness of the horses, that the nursery rhyme about 
Banbury Cross, and the venerable lady who rode in Kate there, was 


THE UXCOMHERCIAL TRAVELER. 


51 

always in my ears, _ And now 1 came 1o the land of wooden houses, 
innocent cakes, thin butter soup, and spotless little inn bedrooms 
with a family likeness to Dairies. And now the Swiss marksmen 
were forever ritie-shocling at marks across gorges, so exceedingly 
near my ear, that 1 felt like a new Gesler in a Canton of Tells, and 
went in highly-deserved danger of my tyrannical life. The prizes 
at these shootings were watches, smart handkerchiefs, hats, spoons, 
and (above all) tea-trays; anti at these contests I came upon a more 
than usually accomplished and amaiable countryman of my own, 
who had shot himself deaf in whole years of competition, and 
had won so many tea-trays that he went about the country with his 
carriage full of them, like a glorified Cheap Jack. 

In the mountain country into which I had now traveled, a yoke 
of oxen were sometimes hooked on before the post-horses, and I 
went lumbering up, up, up, through mist and rain, with the roar of 
falling water for change of music. Of a sudden, mist and rain 
would clear away, and I would come down into picturesque little 
towns with gleaming spires and odd towers; and would stroll afoot 
into market-places in steep winding streets, where a hundred women 
in bodices sold eggs and honey, butter and fruit, and suckled their 
children as they sat by their clean baskets, and had such enormous 
goiters (or glandular swellings in the throat), that it became a science 
to know wdiere the nurse ended and the child began. About this 
time I deserted my German chariot for the back of a mule (in color 
and consistency so very like a dusty old hair trunk I once had at 
school, that 1 half expected to see my initials in brass-headed nails 
on his back-bone), and went up a thousand rugged ways, and looked 
down at a thousand wmods of fir and pine, and would, on the whole, 
have preferred my mule’s keeping a little nearer to the inside, and 
not usually traveling with a hoof or two over the precipice— though 
much consoled by explanation that this was to be attributed to his 
great sagacity, by reason of his carrying broad loads of wood at 
other times, and not being clear but that 1 myself belonged to that 
station of life, and required as much room as they. He brought me 
safely, in his own wise way, among the passes of the Alps, and here 
I enjoyed a dozen climates a day; being now (like Don Quixote on 
the back of the wooden horse) in the region of wind, now in the 
region of fire, now in the region of unmelted ice and snow. Here 
I passed over trembling domes of ice, beneath which the cataract 
was roaring; and here was received under arches of icicles of un- 
speakable beauty; and here the sweet air was so bracing and so light, 
that at halting-times I rolled in the snow when 1 saw my mule do 
it, thinking that he must know best. At this part of the journey 
we would come, at midday, into half an hour’s thaw: when the 
rough mountain inn would be found on an island of deep mud in a 
sea of snow, while the baiting strings of mules, and the carts full of 
casks and bales, which had been in an Arctic condition a mile off, 
would steam again. By such ways and means, I would come to the 
cluster of chalets where 1 had to turn out of the track to see the 
water-fall; and then, uttering a howl like a young giant, on espying 
a traveler — in other words, something to eat— coming up the steep, 
the idiot lying on the wood-pile, who sunned himself and nursed his 
goiter, w’ould rouse the woman-guide within the hut, who would 


52 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


stream out hastily, throwing her child over one of her shoulders and 
« her goiter over the other,' as she came along. I slept at religious 
houses, and bleak refuges of many kinds, on this journey, and by 
the stove at night heard stories of travelers who had perished within 
■call, in wreaths and drifts of snow. One night the stove within, 
and the cold outside, awakened childish associations long forgotten, 
and 1 dreamed I was in Russia— the identical serf out of a picture- 
book 1 had before 1 could read it for myself — and that 1 was going 
to be knoiited by a noble personage in a fur cap, boots, and ear- 
rings, who, I think, must have come out of some melodrama. 

Commend me to the beautiful waters among these mountains! 
Though I was not of their mind, they, being inveterately bent on 
getting down into the level country, and I ardently desiring to lin- 
ger where 1 was. What desperate leaps they took, what dark 
abysses they plunged into, what rocks they wore away, what echoes 
they invoked! In one part where 1 went, they were pressed into 
the service of carrying wood down, to be burnt next winter, as 
costly fuel, in Italy. But, their fierce savage nature was not to be 
easily conotrained, and they fought with every limb of the wood; 
whirling it round and round, stripping its bark away, dashing it 
against pointed corners, driving it out of the course, and roaring 
and flying at the peasants who steered it back again from the bank 
with long stout poles, Alas! concurrent streams of time and water 
carried me down fast, and I came, on an exquisitely clear day, to 
the Lausanne shore of the Lake of Geneva, where 1 stood looking at 
the bright blue water, the flushed white mountains opposite, and 
the boats at my feet with their furled Mediterranean sails, showing 
like enormous magnifications of this goose-quill pen that is now in. 
my hand. 

The sky became overcast without any notice; a wind very like 
the March east wind of England blew across me; and a voice said, 
“ flow do you like it? Will it do?” 

I had merely shut myself, for half a minute, in a German travel- 
ing chariot that stood for sale in the Carriage Department of the 
London Pantechnicon. I had a commission'to buy it for a friend 
who was going abroad; and the look and manner of the chariot, as 
I tried the cushions and the springs, brought all these hints of trav- 
eling remembrance before me, 

” It will do very well,” said I, rather sorrowfully, as I got out at 
the door, and shut the carriage up. 


VIII. 

THE GREAT TASMANIA’S CARGO. 

I TRAVEL constantly up and down a certain line of railway that 
has a terminus in London. It is the railway for a large military 
.depot, and for other large barracks. To the best of my serious be- 
lief, I have never been on that railway by daylight without seeing 
some handcuffed deserters in the train. 

It is in the nature of things that such an institution as our En- 
glish army should have many bad and troublesome characters in it. 
But, this is a reason for, and not against, its being made as acceptable 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 63 

as possible to well-disposed men of decent behavior. Such men 
are assuredly not tempted into the ranks by the beastly inversion 
of natural laws, and the compulsion to live in worse than swinish 
foulness. Accordingly, when any such Circumlocutional embel- 
lishments of the soldier’s condition have of late been brought to 
notice, we civilians, seated in outer darkness cheerfully meditating 
on an Income Fax, have considered the matter as being our busi- 
ness, and have shown a tendency to declare that we would rather 
not have it misregulaled, if such declaration may, without violence 
lo the Church Catechism, be hinted to those who are put in authorit}" 
over us. 

Any animated description of a modern battle, any private soldier’s 
letter published in the newspapers, any page of the records of tbe 
Victoria Cross, will show that in the ranks of the army there exists, 
under all disadvantages, as fine a sense of duty as is to be found in 
any station on earth. Who doubts that, it we all did ofir duty as 
faithfully as the soldier does his, this world would be a better place? 
There may be greater difficulties in our way than in the soldier’s. 
ISTot disputed. But, let us at least do our duty toward him. 

1 had got back again to that rich and beautiful port where 1 had 
looked after Mercantile Jack, and 1 was walking up a hill there, on 
a wild March morning. My conversation with my official friend 
Pangloss, by whom 1 was accidentally accompanied, took this direc- 
tion as we took the up hill direction, because the object of my un- 
commercial journey was to see some discharged soldiers who had 
recently come home from India. There were men of Havelock’s 
among them; there were men who had been in many of the great 
battles of the great Indian campaign among them; and I was curi- 
ous to note what our discharged soldiers looked like when they were 
done with. 

1 was not the less interested (as I mentioned to my official friend 
Pangloss) because these men had claimed to be discharged, when 
their right to be discharged was not admitted. They had behaved 
with Unblemished fidelity and bravery; but, a change of circum- 
stances had arisen, which, as they considered, put an end to their 
compact, and entitled them to enter on a new one. Their demand 
had been blunderingly resisted by the authorities in India; but, it is 
to be presumed that the men were not far wrong, inasmuch as the 
bungle had ended in their being sent home discharged, in pursuance 
of orders from home. (There was an immense waste of money, of 
■course.) 

Under these circumstances — thought I, as I walked up the hill on 
which I accidentally encountered my official friend — under these 
circumstances of the men having successfully opposed themselves 
to the Pagoda Department of that great Circumlocution Office on 
w'hich the sun never sets and the light of reason never rises, the 
Pagoda Department will have been particularly careful of the 
national honor. It will have shown these men, in the scrupulous 
good faith, not to say the generosity of its dealings with them, that 
great national authorities can have no small retaliations and revenges. 
It will have made every provision for their health on the passage 
home, and will have lauded them, restored from their campaigning 
fatigues by a sea voyage, pure air, sound food, and good medicines. 


54 


THE UKCOMHERCIAL TRAVELER. 


And I pleased myself with dwellino; beforehand on the p:reat ac- 
counts of their personal treatment which lliese men would carry 
into their various towns and villages, and on the increasing popu- 
larity of the service that would insensibly follow. I almost began 
to hope that the hitherto never-failing deserters on my railroad 
would by and by become a phenomenon. 

In this agreeable frame of mind 1 entered the workhouse of Liver- 
pool. For the cultivation of laurels in a sandy soil had brought the 
soldiers in question to that abode of Glory. 

Before going into their wards to visit them, I inquired how they 
had made their triumphant entry there. They had been brought 
through the rain in carls, it seemed, from the landing-place to the 
gale, and had then been carried up-stairs on the backs of paupers. 
Their groans and pains, during the performance of this glorious 
pageant, had been so distressing as to bring tears into the eyes of 
spectators but too well accustomed to scenes of suffering. The 
men were so dreadfully cold, that those who could get near the fires 
were hard to be restrained from thrusting their feet in among the 
blazing coals. They v/ere so horribly reduced, that they were 
awful to look upon. Racked with dysentery, and blackened with 
scurvy, one hundred and forty wretched soldiers had been revived 
with brandy, and laid in bed. 

My official friend Pangloss is lineally descended from a learned 
doctor of that name, who was once tutor to Candide, an ingenious 
young gentleman of some celebrity. In his personal character he is 
as humane and worthy a gentleman as any I know; in his oflicial 
capacity he unfortunately preaches the doctrines of his renowned 
ancestor, by demonstrating on all occasions that we live in the best 
of all possible official worlds. 

“ In the name of Humanity,” said I, ” how did the men fall into 
this deplorable state? Was the ship well found in stores?” 

” I am not here to asseverate that I know the fact of my own 
knowledge,” answered Pangloss, ” but 1 have grounds for asserting 
that the stores were the best of all possible stores.” 

A medical officer laid before us a handful of rotten biscuit, and a 
handful of split peas. The biscuit was a honeycombed heap of 
maggots, and the excrements of maggots. The peas were even 
harder than this filth. A similar handful had been experimentally 
boiled six hours, and had shown no signs of softening. These were 
the stores on which the soldiers had been fed. 

” The beef ” I began, when Pangloss cut me short. 

“Was the best of all possible beef,” said he. 

“ But, behold, there was laid before us certain evidence given at 
the Coroner’s Inquest, holden on some of the men (who had ob- 
stinately died of their treatment), and from that evidence it appeared 
that the beef was the worst of possible beef! 

” Then I lay my hand upon my heart, and take my stand.” said 
Pangloss, ” by the pork, which was the best of all possible pork.” 

” But look at this food l>efore our eyes, if one may so misuse the 
word,” said 1. ” Would any Inspector who did his duty pass 

such abomination?” 

” It ought not to have been passed,” Pangloss admitted. 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TKAYELER. 55 

**Tlieii tbe authorities out there ”I began, when Pangloss 

■cut me short again. 

“ There would certainly seem to have been something wrong 
somewhere,” said he; ” but 1 am prepared to prove that the author! 
ties out there are the best of all possible authorities.” 

I never heard of any impeached public authority in mj life who 
was not the best public authority in existence. 

“We are told of these unfortunate men being laid low by scurvy,” 
Said I. “ Since lime-juice has been regularly stored and served out 
in our navy, surely that disease, which used to devastate it, has al- 
most disappeared? Was there lime-juice aboard this transport?” 

My official friend was beginning: “ The best of all possible ” 

when an inconvenient medical forefinger pointed out another passage 
in the evidence, from which it appeared that the lime-juice had been 
bad too. Not to mention that the vinegar had been bad too, the vege- 
tables bad too, the cooking accommodation insuflScient (if there had 
been anything worth mentiosing to cook), the water supply exceed- 
ingly inadequate,^ and the beer sour. 

“Then the men,” said Pangloss, a little irritated, “were the 
worst of all possible men.” 

“ In what respect?” I asked. 

“ Oh! Plabitual drunkards,” said Pangloss. 

But again the same incorrigible medical forefinger pointed out an- 
other passage in the evidence, showing that the dead men had been 
examined after death, and that they, at least, could not possibly 
have been habitual drunkards, because the organs within them, 
which must have shown traces of that habit, were perfectly sound. 

“ And besides,” said the three doctors present, one and all, 
“ habitual drunkards brought as low as these men have been, could 
not recover under care of food, as the great majority of these men 
are recovering. They would not have strength of constitution to 
•do it.” 

“Reckless and improvident dogs, then,” said Pangloss. “Al- 
ways are — nine times out of ten.” 

I turned to the master of the workhouse, and asked him whether 
the men had any money. 

“ Money?” said he. “ 1 have in my iron safe nearly four 'hundred 
pounds of theirs; the agents have nearly a hundred pounds more; 
4ind many of them have left money in Indian banks besides.” 

“ Hah!” said I to myself as we went up stairs, “ this is not the 
best of all possible stories, I doubt!” 

We went into a large ward, containing some twenty or five-and- 
twenty beds. We went into several such wards, one after another. 

I find it very diflflcull to indicate what u shocking sight I saw in 
them, without frightening the reader from the perusal of these lines, 
and defeating my object of making it known. 

Oh, the sunken eyes that turned to me as I walked between the 
rows of beds, or — worse still— that glazedly looked at the white ceil- 
ing, and saw nothing, and cared for nothing! Here lay the skeleton 
of a man, so lightly covered with a thin unwholesome skin, that 
not a bone in the anatomy was clothed, and I could clasp the arm, 
above the elbow, in my finger and thumb. Here lay a man with 
Hie black scurvy eating his legs aw^ay, his gums gone, and his teeth 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


56 

all gaunt and bare. This bed was empty, because gangrene had set; 
in, and the patient had died but yesterday. Tiiat bed was a hope- 
less one, because its occupant was sinking fast, and could only be- 
roused to turn the poor pinched mask of face upon the pillow witk 
a feeble moan. The awi ul thinness of the fallen cheeks, the awful 
brightness of the deep set eyes, the lips of lead, the hands of ivory,, 
the recumbent human images lying in the shadow of death with a 
kind of solemn twilight on them, like the sixty who had died aboard 
the ship, and were lying at the bottom of the sea, O Pangloss, Goi>- 
forgive you! 

In one bed lay a man whose life had been saved (as it was hoped) 
by deep incisions in the feet and legs. While 1 was speaking. ta 
him, a nurse came up to change the poultices which this operation 
had rendered necessary, and 1 had an instinctive feeling that it was. 
not well to turn away, merely to spare myself. He was sorely 
Vvasted and keenly susceptible, but the efforts he made to subdue- 
any expression of impatience or suffering were quite heroic. It 
was easy to see. in the shrinking of the figure, and the drawing of the 
bedclothes over the head, how acute the endurance was, and it 
made me shrink too, as if 1 were in pain; but, when the new band- 
ages w^ere on, the poor feet were composed again, he made an 
apology for himself (though he had not uttered a word), and said 
plaintively, “1 am so tender and weak, sir, you see!” Neither 
from him, nor from any one sufferer of the wiiole ghastly number,, 
-did 1 hear a complaint. Of thankfulness for present solicitude and 
^are, 1 heard much; of complaint, not a word. 

I think I could have recognized, in the dismalest skeleton there, 
the ghost of a soldier. Something of the old air was still latent in 
the palest shadow of life I talked to. One emaciated creature, in 
the strictest literality worn to the bone, lay stretched on his back, 
looking so like death that 1 asked one of the doctors if he w^ere not. 
dying, or dead? A few^ kind wmrds from the doctor in his ear, and 
he opened his eyes and smiled — looked, in a moment, as if he w^ould 
have made a salute, if he could. ‘"'We shall pull him through, 
please God,” said the doctor. “Plase God, suit, and thankye,” 
said the patient. ” You are much better to-day; are you not?” said 
the doctor. ” Plase God, suit; ’tis the slape 1 w’^aut, suit; 'tis my 
brathin’ makes the nights so long.” ” He is a careful fellow this, 
you must know,” said the doctor, cheerfullf; ” it w^as raining hard 
when they put him in the open cart to bring him here, and he had 
the presence of mind to ask to have a sovereign taken out of his 
pocket that he had there, and a cab engaged. Probably it saved his 
life.” The patient rattled out the skeleton of a laugh, and said, 
proud of the story, “ Deed, surr, an open cairt was a comical means 
o’ bringing’ a dyin’ man here, and a clever way to kill him.” You. 
might have sworn to him for a soldier when he said it. 

One thing had perplexed me very much in going from bed to bed, 
A very significant and cruel thing. 1 could find no young man but. 
one. He had attracted my noUce by having got up and dressed 
liimself in his soldier’s jacket and trousers. With the intention of 
sitting by the fire; but he had found himself too weak, and had 
crept back to his bed, and laid himself down on the outside of it. 
1 could have ])ronounced him, alone, to be a young man aged by 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


57 


famine and sickness. As we were sfandine: by the Irish soldier’s 
l)ed, 1 mentioned my perplexity to the doctor. He took a board 
with an inscription on it from the Iiead of the Irishman’s bed, and 
asked me what agie 1 supposed that man to be? 1 had observed him 
with attention while talking to him, and answered, confidently, 
'‘Fifty.” The doctor, with a pitying glance at the patient, who 
had dropped into a stupor again, put the board back, and said, 
” Twenty- four.” 

All the arrangements of the wards were excellent. They could 
not have been more humane, sympathizimr, gentle, attentive, or 
wholesome. The owners of the sliip, too, had done all they could 
liberally. There were bright fires in every room, and the con- 
valescent men were sitting round them, reading various papers and 
periodicals. I took the liberty of inviting my official friend Pangloss 
to look at those convalescent men, and to tell mewdiether their faces 
and bearing were or were not, generally, the faces and bearing of 
steady, respectable soldiers? The master of the workhouse, overhear- 
ing me, said he hud had a pretty large experience of troops, and that 
Iretter-conducted men than these he had heverhad to do with. They 
were always (he added) as we saw them. And of us visitors (I add) 
they knew nothing whatever, except that we were there. 

It was audacious in me, but I took another liberty with Pangloss. 
Prefacing it with the observation that, of course, I knew beforehand 
that there was not the faintest desire, anywhere, to hush up any part 
of this dreadful business, and that the Inquest was the fairest of all 
possible Inquests, I besought four things of Pangloss. Firstly, to 
observe that the Inquest was not held in that place, but at some dis- 
tance off. Secondly, to look round upon .those helpless specters in 
tlieir beds. Thirdly, to remember that the witnesses produced from 
among them before that Inquest could not have been selected be- 
cause they were the men who had the most to tell but because 
they happened to be in a state admitting of their safe removal. 
Fourthly, to say whether the Coroner and Jury could have come 
there, to those pillows, and taken a little evidence? My official 
friend declined to commit himself to a reply. 

There was a sergeant, reading, in one of the fireside groups. As 
he was a man of very intelligent countenance, and as I have a great 
respect for non-commissioned officers as a class, I sat down on the 
nearest bed, to have some talk with him. (It was the bed of one of 
'the grisliest of the poor skeletons, and he died soon afterward.) 

” I was glad to see, in the evidence of an officer at the Inquest, 
sergeaht, that he never saw men behave better on board ship than 
these men.” ‘ ^ 

‘‘ They did behave very well, sir.” 

” I was glad to see, too, that every man had a hammock.” 

The sergeant gravely shook his head. ” There must be some 
mistake, sir. The men of my owm mess had no hammocks. There 
were not hammocks enough on board, and the men of the two next 
messes laid iiold of hammocks for themselves as soon as they got oa 
board, and squeezed my men out, as I may say.” 

‘‘ Had the squeezed-out men none, then?” 

” None, sir. As men died, their hammocks were used by other 
men who wanted hammocks; but many men had none at all.” 


58 


THE UNCOMMEllCIAL TRAVELER. 


“ Then you don’t agree with the evidence on that point?” 

” Certainly not, sir. A man can’t when he knows to the con- 
trary.” 

” Did any of the men sell their bedding tor drink?” 

” There is some mistake on that point too, sir. Men rveie under 
the impression— 1 knew it fora fact at the time— that it was not 
allowed to take blankets or bedding on board, and so men who had 
things of that sort came to sell them purposely.” 

” Did any of the men sell their clothes for drink?” 

‘‘They did, sir.” (1 believe there never was a more truthful 
witness than the sergeant. He had no inclination to make out a 
case.) 

‘‘ Many?” 

“ Some, sir ” (considering the question). ‘‘ Soldier-like. They" 
had been long marching in the rainy season, by bad roads— no roads 
it all, in short— and when they got to Calcutta, men turned to and 
drank before taking a last look at it. Soldier-like.” 

‘‘ Do you see any men in this ward, for example, who sold clothes 
for drink at that time?” 

The sergeant's wan eye, happily just beginning to rekindle with 
health, traveled round the place, and came back to me. ‘‘ Cer- 
tainly, sir.” 

” The marching to Calcutta in the rainy season must have been, 
very severe?” 

“ It was very severe, sir.” 

“ Yet, what with the rest and the sea air, I should have thought 
that the men (even the men who got drunk) would have soon begun 
to recover on board ship?” 

” So they might; but the bad food told upon them, and, when we 
got into a cold latitude, it began to tell more, and the men 
dropped.” 

‘‘ The sick had a general disinclination for food, I am told„ 
sergeant?” 

‘‘ Have you seen the food, sir?” 

” Some of it.” 

‘‘ Have you seen the state of their months, sir?” 

If the sergeant, who was a man of a few orderly words, had 
spoken the amount of this volume, he could not have settled that 
question better. I believe the sick could as soon have eaten the ship 
as the ship’s provisions. 

] tooK the additional liberty with my friend Pangloss, ydien I 
had left the sergeant with good wishes, of asking Pangloss whether 
Jie had ever heard of biscuit getting druuk, and bartering its nutri- 
tious (.fualities for putrefaction and vermin; of peas becoming hard- 
ened in liquor; of hammocks drinking themselves off the face of 
the earth; of lime-juice, vegetables, vinegar, cooking accommoda- 
tion, water supply, and beer, all taking to drinking together, and 
going to ruin? ‘‘ If not (I asked him), what did he say in defense 
of the officers condemned by the Coroner’s Jury, who bv signing 
the General Inspection Report relative to the ship ‘ Grea^Tas- 
inania,” chartered for these troops, had deliberately asserted all that 
bad and poisonous dunghill refuse to be good and wholesome food^’" 
]\[y official friend replied that it was a remarkable fact that 


THE UHCOMMERCtAL TRAVELER. 


59 


Tvhereas some ofBcers were ouly positively good, and other officers 
only comparatively better, those particular officers were superla- 
tively the very best of all possible officers. 

My hand and my heart fail me in writing my record of this jour- 
ney. The spectacle of the soldiers in the hospital beds of that Liv- 
erpool workhouse (a very good workhouse, indeed, be it understood) 
was so shocking and so shameful, that, as an Englishman, I blush 
to remember it. It would have been simply unbearable at the time, 
but for the consideration and pity with which they were soothed in 
their sufterings. 

No punishment that our inefficient laws provide is worthy of the 
name, when set against the guilt of this transaction. But, if the 
memory of it die out unavenged, and if it do not result in the in- 
exorable dismissal and disgrace of those who are responsible for it, 
their escape will be infamous to the Government (no matter of what 
party) that so neglects its duty, and infamous to the nation that 
tamely suffers su^h intolerable wrong to be done in its name. 


IX. 

CITY OP LONDON CHURCHES. 

Ip the confession that I have often traveled from this Covent- 
Gardeu lodging of mine on Sundays should give offense to those 
who never travel on Sundays, they will be satisfied (1 hope) by my 
adding that the journeys in question were made to churches. 

Not that I have any curiosity to hear powerful preachers. Time 
was when I was dragged by the hair of my head, as one may say, 
to hear too many. On summer evenings, when every flower, and 
free, and bird might have better addressed my soft young heart, 1 
have, in my day, been caught in the palm of a female hand by the 
crown, have been violently scrubbed from the neck to the roots of 
the hair as a purification for the Temple, and have then been carried 
off, highly charged with saponaceous electricity, to be steamed like 
a potato in the uuventilated breath of the powerful Boanerges Boiler 
and his congregation, until what small mind I had W'as quite 
steamed out of me. In which pitiable plight I have been haled out 
of the place of meeting, at the conclusion of the exercises, and 
catechised respecting Boanerges Boiler, his fifthly, his sixthly^ and 
ids seventhly, until ] have regarded that reverend person in the light 
of a most dismal and oppressive Charade. Time was wffien I was 
carried off to platform assemblages at which no human child, 
wdiether of wrath or grace, could possibly keep its eyes open, and 
when 1 felt the fatal sleep stealing, stealing over me, and when I 
gradually heard the orator in possession spinning and humming 
like a great top, until he rolled, collapsed, and tumbled over, and 1 
discovered, to my burning shame and fear, that as to that last stage 
it was not he, but I. I have sat under Boanerges wdien he has 
specifically addressed himself to us— us, the infants— and at this 
present writing 1 hear his lumbering jocularity (which never amused 
us, though we basely pretended that it did), and 1 behold his big 
round face, and I look up the inside of his outstretched coat-sleeve 


60 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


as if it were a telescope with the stopper on, and 1 hate him with au 
unwholesome hatred for two hours. Through such means did it 
come to pass that 1 knew the powerful preacher from beginning to- 
end, all over and all through, while I was very young, and that 1 
left him behind at an early period of life. Peace be with himi; 
More peace than he brought to me! 

Now, 1 have heard many preachers since that time — not power- 
ful; merely Christian, unaffected and reverential — and I hav^ had 
many such preachers on my roll of friends. But, it was not to hear 
these, any more than the powerful class, that I made my Sunday 
journeys. They were journeys of curiosity to the numerous 
churches in the City of Loudon. It came into my head one day, 
here had 1 been cultivating a familiarity with all the churches of 
Rome, and 1 knew nothing of the insides of the old churches of 
London! This befell on a'Sunday morning. I began my expe- 
ditions that very same day, and they lasted me a year. 

I never wanted to know the names of the churches to which I 
went, and to this hour I am profoundly ignorant in that particular 
of at least nine-tenths ot them. Indeed, saving that I know the 
church ot old Gower’s tomb (he lies in effigy with his head upon- 
his books) to be the church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark; and the 
church of Milton’s tomb to be the church of Cripplegate; and the 
church on Cornhill with the great golden keys to be the church of 
St. Peter’s; I doubt ifl could pass a competitive examination in any 
of the names. No question did I ever ask of living creature con- 
cerning these churches, and no answer to any antiquarian question 
on the subject that I ever put to books shall harass the reader’s soul. 
A full half of my pleasure in them arose out of their mystery; mys- 
terious I found them; mysterious the^^ shall remain for me. 

Where shall I begin my round of hidden and forgotten old' 
churches in the Cit 3 ’^ of London? 

It is twenty minutes short of eleven on a Sunday morning, when 
1 stroll down one of the many narrow, hill}’^ streets in the City that 
tend due south to the Thames. It is my first experiment, and 1 
have come to the region of Whittington in an omnibus, and we- 
have put down a fierce- ej^ed, spare old woman, wdmse slate-colored 
gown smells ot herbs, and who walked up Aldersgate Street to- 
some chapel where she comforts herself with brimstone doctrine, 1 
warrant. ^Ye have also put down a stouter and sweeter old lady, 
with a pretty large Prayer-book in an unfolded pocket-handker- 
chief, Avho got out at a corner of a court near Stationers’ Hall, and 
who, 1 think, must go to church there because she is the widow of 
some deceased old Company’s Beadle, The rest of our freight were 
mere chance pleasure-seekers and rural walkers, and went on to the 
Black wall Railway, So many bells are ringing, when 1 stand un- 
decided at a street corner, that every sheep in the ecclesiastical fold 
might be a bell-w’-ether. The discordance is fearful. My state of 
indecision is referable to, and about equally divisible among, four 
great churches, which are all within sight and sound, all within the- 
space of a few square yards. 

As I stand at the street corner, 1 don’t see as many as four people- 
at once going to church, thougli 1 see as many as four churches 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAYELER. 


G1 


•vvith'their steeples clamoring for people. 1 choose my church, and 
go up the flight of steps to the great entrance in the tower. A 
moldy tower within, and like a neglected wash-house. A rope 
comes through the beamed roof, and a man in the corner pulls it 
and clashes the bell — a whity-brown man, whose clothes were once 
black — a man with flue on him, and cobweb. He stares at me„ 
wondering how 1 come there, and 1 stare at him, wondering how he 
comes there. Through a screen of wood and glass I peep into the 
dim church. About twenty people are discernible, waiting to begin. 
Christening would seem to have faded out of this church long ago,, 
for the font has the dust of desuetude thick upon it, and its wooden- 
cover (shaped like an old-fashioned tureen cover) looks as if it 
wouldn’t come off upon requirement. I perceive the altar to be 
rickety, and the Commandments damp. Entering after this survey, 
I jostle the clergyman in his canonicals, who is entering too from a 
dark lane behind a pew of slate with curtains, where nobody sits. 
The pew is ornamented with four blue wands, once carried by four 
somebodys, 1 suppose, before somebody else, but which there is 
nobody now to hold or receive honor from. 1 open the door of a 
family pew, and shut myself in; if 1 could occupy twenty family 
pews at once, 1 might have them. The clerk, a brisk young man 
(how does he come here?), glances at me knowingly, as who should 
say: “You have done it now; you must stop.” Organ plays. 
Organ-loft is in a small gallery across the church; gallery congrega- 
tion, two girls. I wonder within myself what ivill happen when 
we are required to sing. 

There is a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and while 
the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such fashion tliat 
1 can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any 
music, 1 looked at the hooks, which are mostly bound in faded baize 
and stuff. They belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family; and 
who were they? Jane Comport must have married Young Dow- 
gate, and come into the family that way; Young Dowgate was- 
courting Jane Comport when he gave her her Pra 3 'er-hook, and 
reconled the presentation in the fly-leaf; if Jane were fond of Young 
Dowgate, why did she die and leave the book here? Perhaps at the 
rickety altar, and before the damp Commandments, she. Comport, 
bad taken him, Dowgate, in a flush of youthful hope and joy, and 
perhaps it liad not turned out in the long run as great a success a& 
was expected? 

The opening of the service recalls my wandering thoughts. I 
then find, to my astonishment, that 1 have been, and still am, tak- 
ing a strong kind of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and 
down my throat. 1 wink, sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes; 
the clergyman winks; the unseen organist sneezes and coughs (and 
probably winks); all our little party wink, sneeze, and cough. The 
snuff seems to he made of the decay of matting, wood, cloth, stone, 
iron, earth, and something else. Is the something else the decay of 
dead citizens in the vaults below? As sure as Death it is! Not 
only in the cold damp February day do we cough and sneeze dead 
citizens all through the service, but dead citizens have got into the 
very bellows of the organ, and half choked the same. We stamp- 
our feet to warm them, and dead citizens arise in heav}' clouds. 


62 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


Dead citizens stick upon the walls, and lie pulverized on (he sound- 
ing-board over the clergyman’s head, an'd, when a gust of air 
comes, tumble down upon him. 

In this first experience I was so nauseated by too much snuff, 
made of the Dowgate family, the Comport branch, and other fami- 
lies and branches, that 1 gave but little heed to our dull manner of 
ambling through the service; to the brisk clerk’s manner of encour- 
aging us to tr}’' a note or two at psalm time; to the galler}" congre- 
gation’s manner of enjoying a shrill duet, without a notion of time 
or tune; to the whity-hfown man’s manner of shutting the minister 
into the pulpit, and being very particular with the lock of the door, 
a«if he were a dangerous animal. But, 1 tried again next Sunday, 
and soon accustomed myself to the dead citizens, when 1 found that 
I could not possibly get on without them among the City churches. 

Another Sunday. 

After being again rung for by conflicting bells, like a leg of mut- 
ton or a laced hat a hundred years ago, 1 made a selection of a 
church oddly put away in a corner among a number of lanes— a 
smaller church than the last, and an ugly: of about the date of 
Queen Anne. As the congregation, we are fourteen strong; not 
counting an exhausted charity school in a gallery, which has dwin- 
dled away to four boys and two girls. In the porch is a benefac- 
tion of loaves of bread, which there would seem to be nobody left 
in the exhausted congregation to claim, and which 1 saw an ex- 
hausted beadle, long faded out of uniform, eating with his eyes for 
self and family when 1 passed in. There is also an exhausted clerk 
in a brown wig, and two or three exhausted doors and. windows 
have been bricked up, and the service books are musty, and the 
pulpit cushions are threadbare, and the whole of the church furni- 
ture is in a very advanced state of exhaustion. “We are three old 
women (habitual), two young lovers (accidental), two tradesmen, 
one with a wife and one alone, an aunt and nephew, again two girls 
(these two girls dressed out for church, with everything about them 
limp that should be stiff, and mce versa, are an invariable experi- 
ence), and three sniggering boys. The clergyman is, perhaps, the 
ohiiplain of a civic company; be has the moist and vinous look, eke 
the bulbous boots, of one acquainted with ’Twenty port and comet 
vintages. 

We are so quiet in our dullness, that the three sniggering boys, 
who have got away into a corner by the altar railing, give us a start, 
like crackers, whenever they laugh. And this reminds me of my 
own village church, where, during sermon-time on bright Sundays 
wdien the birds are very musical indeed, farmers’ boys patter out 
over the stone pavement, and the clerk steps out from his desk after 
them, and is distinctly heard in the summer repose to pursue and 
punch them in the church-yard, and is seen to return with a medi- 
tative countenance, making believe that nothing of the sort has hap- 
pened. Tlie aunt and nephew in this City church are much dis- 
turbed by the sniggering boys. The nephew is himself a boy, and 
the sniggerers tempt him to secular thoughts of marbles and 
string, by secretly offering such commodities to his distant con- 
templatio'n. This young St. Anthony for awhile resists, but pres- 
ently becomes a backslider, and in dumb show defies the sniggereis 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


63 


to “ heave ” a marble or two in his direction. Herein he is detect- 
ed by the aunt (ari^^orous, reduced gentlewoman who has the charge 
of offices), and I perceive that worthy relative to poke liim in the 
side with the corrugated hooked handle of an ancient umbrella. 
The nephew revenges himself for this by holding his breath, and 
terrifying his kinswoman with the dread belief that he has made up 
. his mind to burst. Regardless of whispers and shakes, he swells 
and becomes discolored, and yet again swells and becomes discol- 
ored, until the aunt can bear it no longer, but leads him out. with 
no visible neck, and with his eyes going before him like a pr;iwn’s. 
This causes the sniggerers to regard flight as an eligible move, and 
1 know^ which of them will go out first, because of the over devout 
attention that he sudtlenly concentrates on the clergyman. In a lit- 
tle while, this hypocrite, with an elaborate demonstration of hash- 
ing his footsteps, and with a face generally expressive of having 
until now forgotten a religious appointment elsewhere, is gone. 
Number Two gets out in the same way, but rather quicker. Num- 
ber Three, getting safely to the door, there turns reckless, and, 
banging it open, flies forth with a Whoop! that vibrates to the top 
of the lower above us. 

The clergyman, who is of a prandial presence and a muffled voice, 
may be scant of hearing as well as of breath, but he only glances up 
as having an idea that somebody has said Amen in a wrong place, 
and continues his steady jog-trot, like a farmer’s wife going to mar- 
ket. He does all he has to do in the same easy way, and gives us a 
concise sermon, still like the jog-trot oi the farmer’s wife on a level 
road. Its drowsy cadence soon lulls the three old women asleep, 
and the unmarried tradesman sits looking out at window, and the 
married tradesman sits looking at his wife’s bonnet, and the lovers 
sit looking at one another, so superlatively happy, that I mind when 
1, turned of eighteen, went with my Angelica to a City church on 
account of a shower, (by this special coincidence that it was in Hug- 
gin Lane), and when I said to my Angelica, “ Let the blessed event, 
Angelica, occur at no altar but this!” and when my Angelica con-' 
sented that it should occur at no other— which it certainly never 
did, for it never occurred anywhere. And oh, Angelica! what has 
become of you this present Sunday morning when I can’t attend to 
the sermon? and, more difficult question than that, what has be- 
come of Me as I was when 1 sat by your side? 

But, we receive the signal to make that unanimous dive whicli 
surely is a little conventional — like the strange rustlings and set- 
tlings and clearings of throa's and noses, w'hich are never dispensed 
with at certain points of the church service, and are never held to be 
necessary under any other circumstance. In a minute more it is all 
over, and the organ expresses itself to be as glad of it as it can be of 
anything in its rheumatic state, and in another minute we are all of 
us out of the church, and Whity-brown lias locked it up. Another 
minute, or little more, and, in the neighboring church-yard — not 
the yard of that church, but of another — a church-yard like a great 
shabby old mignonette box with two trees in it, and one tomb — 1 
meet Whity-brown, in his private capacity, fetching a pint of beer 
for Ids dinner from the public-house in the corner, where the keys 
of the rotting fire-ladders are kept, and were never asked for, and 


•64 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


where there is a ra^a^ged, white-seamed, out-at-elbowed haj?atelle 
board on the first floor. 

In one of these City churches, and only in one, I found an indi- 
vidual who might have been claimed as expressly a City personage. 
1 remember the chnrch by the feature that the clergyman couldn’t 
get to his own desk without going through the clerk’s, or couldn’t 
get to the pulpit without going through tlie reading-desk — I forget 
which, and it is no matter — and by the presence of this personage 
among the exceedingly sparse congregation. I doubt if we were a 
dozen, and we had no exhausted charity school to help us out. The 
personage was dressed in black of square cut, and was stricken in 
years, and wore a black velvet cap and cloth shoes. He was of 
staid, wealthy, and dissatisfied aspect. In his hand he conducted to 
•church a mysterious child: a child of the feminine gender. The 
child had a beaver hat, with a stiff drab plume that surely never be- 
longed to any bird of the air. The child was further attired in a 
nankeen frock and spencer, brown boxing gloves, and a veil. It 
had a blemish, in the nature of currant jelly, on its chin; and was a 
thirsty child. Insomuch that the personage carried in his pocket a 
green bottle, from which, when the first psalm was given out, the 
child was openly refreshed. At all other times throughout the 
service it was motionless, and stood on the seat of the large pew, 
closely fitted into the corner, like a rain-waterpipe. 

The personage never opened his book, and never looked at the 
clergyman. He never sat down either, but stood with his arms 
leaning on the top of the pew, and his forehead sometimes shaded 
with his right hand, always looking at the church-door. It was a 
long church for a church of its size, and he was at the upper end, 
but he always looked at (he door. That he was an old book-keeper, 
or an old trader who had kept his own books, anti that he miglit be 
seen at the Bank of England about Dividend times, no doubt. 
That he had lived in the Ci(y all his life, and was disdainful of 
other localities, no doubt. Why he looked at the door 1 never ab- 
.jsoliitely proved, but it is my belief that he lived in expectation of 
the time when the citizens would come back to live in the City, and 
its ancient glories would be renewed. He appeared to expect that 
this would occur on a Sunday, and that the wanderers would first 
appear in the deserted churches, penitent and humbled. Hence he 
looked at the door which they never darkened. Whose child the 
child was, whether the child of a disinherited daughter, or some 
parish orphan whom the personage had adopted, there was nothing 
to lead up to. It never played, or skipped, or smiled. Once the 
idea occurred to me that it was an automaton, and that the person- 
age had made it: but, following the strange couple out one Sunday, 
1 heard the personage say to it, “Thirteen thousand pounds;’’ to 
which it added, in a weak human voice, “ Seventeen and four- 
pence.” Four Sundays I followed them out, and this is all I ever 
heard or saw them say. One Sunday I followed them home. They 
Jived behind a pump, and the personage opened their abode with 
an exceeding large key. The one solitary inscription on their house 
related to a fire plug. The house was partly undermined by a de- 
serted and closed gate way; its windows were blind with dirt; and it 
stood with its face disconsolately turned to a wall. Five great 


'THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

•charclies and two small ones rang llieir Sunday bells between this 
iiouse and the cliurcb the couple frequented, so they must have had 
some special reason for going a quarter of a mile to it. The last 
time I saw them was on this wise. I had been to expThre another 
church at a distance, and happened to pass the church they fre- 
quented, at about two of the afternoon, when that edifice was 
■closed. But a little side-door, which I had never observed before, 
stood open, and disclosed certain cellarous steps. Methought, 

The}’’ are airing the vaults to-day,’’ when the personage and the 
child silently arrived at the steps, and silently descended. Of course, 
I came to the conclusion that the personage had at last despaired of 
the looked-for return of the penitent citizens, and that he and the 
'Child went down to get themselves buried. 

In the course of my pilgrimages I came upon one obscure church 
which had broken out in the melodramatic style, and was got up 
'with various tawdry decorations, much after the manner of the 
•extinct London maypoles. These attractions had induced several 
young priests or deacons in black bibs for waistcoats, and several 
young ladies interested in that noble order (the proportion being, as 
I estimated, seventeen young ladies to a deacon), to come' into the 
C!ity as a new and odd excitement. It was wonderful to see hojv 
these young people played out their little play in the heart of the 
Oity, all among themselves, without the deserted City’s knowing 
anything about it. It was as if you should take an empty counting- 
1>oiise*on a Snnday,.aQd act one of the old Mysteries tliere. They 
had impressed a small school (from what neighborhood I don’t 
Irnow) to assist in the performances, and it was pleasant to notice 
frantic garlands of inscription on the walls, especially addressing 
those poor innocents in characters impossible for them to decipher. 
There was a remarkably agreeable smell of pomatum in this cougrer 
gation. 

But, in other cases, rot and mildew and dead citizens formed the 
suppeimost scent,, while, infused into it, in a dreamy way not at all 
displeasing, was the staple character of the neighborhood. In the 
churches ahoiut Mark Lane, for example, there was a dry whiff of 
wheat; and 1 accidentally struck an airy sample of barley out of an 
aged ■'hassock in one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, 
and thereabouts, there was often a subtle flavor of wine: sometimes 
of tea. One diurch near IMincing Lane smelt like a druggist’s 
drawer. jBehind the Monument the service had a flavor of damaged 
oranges, wshicU, & little further down toward the river, tempered into 
iierringa, and gradually toned into a cosmopolitan blast of fish. In 
one-ohurch, the exact counterpart of the church in the Rake’s Prog- 
tress where tlKJ’hero is being married to the horrible old lady, there 
was no specialty of atmosphere until the organ shook a perfume 
•of hides all over us from some adjacent warehouse. 

Be the scent wflat it would, however, there was no specialty in 
.the people. There were never enough of them to represent any 
calling or neighhoi^iood. They had all gone elsewhere overnight, 
.and the few stragglers in the many churches languished there inex- 
pressibly. 

Among the uncommercial travels in which I have engaged, this 
‘year of Sunday tra.vel .occujpics its own place, apart from all the 


66 


THE UHCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 


rest. Whether I think of the church where the sails of the oyster 
boats in the river almost flapped against the windows, or of the 
church where the railroad made the bells hum as the train rushed 
by above the roof, I recall a curious experience. On summer Sun- 
days, in the gentle rain or the bright sunshine —either, deepening 
the idleness of the idle City — I have s.at, in that singular silence 
which belongs to resting-places usually astir, in scores of buildings 
at the heart of the world’s metropolis, unknown to far greater num- 
bers of people speaking the English tongue than the ancient edifices 
of the Eternal Cityj or the Pyramids of Egypt. The dark vestries 
and registries into which I have peeped, and the little hemmed-in 
church-yards that have echoed to my feet, have left impressions on 
my memory as disiinct and quaint as any it has in that way received. 
In all those dusty registers that the worms are eating, there is not a; 
line but made some hearts leap, or some tears flow, in their day. 
Still and dry now, still and dry! and the old tree at the window,, 
with no room for its branches, has seen them all out. So with the' 
tomb of the old Master of the old Company, on which it drips. His- 
son restored it and died, his daughter restored it and died, and then 
he had been remembered long enough, and the tree took possession 
of him, and his name cracked out. 

There are few more striking indications of the changes of man- 
ners and customs that two or three hundred years have brought 
about than these deserted churches. Many ot them are handsome 
and costly structures, several of them were designed by Wren, mrfny 
of them arose from the ashes of the great fire, others of them out- 
lived the plague and the fire too, to die a slow death in these later 
days. No one can be sure of the coming time; but it is not too 
much to say of it that it has no sign, in its outsetting tides, of the 
reflux to these churches of their congregations and uses. They re- 
main, like the tombs of the old citizens who' liebeneath them and 
around them, Monuments of another age. They are worth a Sun- 
day exploration, now and then, for they yet echo, not unharmoni- 
ously, to the time when the City of London really was Loudon; 
when the ’Prentices and Trained Bands were of mark in the state; 
when even the Lord Mayor himself was a reality— not a Fiction 
conventionally be-pufted on one day in the year by illustrious 
friends, who no less conventionally laugh at him on the remaining 
three hundred and sixtv-four days. 


X. 

SHY NEIGHBORHOODS. 

^ So much of my traveling is done on foot, that if I cherished bet- 
ting propensities, I should probably be found registered in sporting 
newspapers under some such title as the Elastic Novice, challenging 
all eleven-stone mankind to competition in walking. My last special 
feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day, pedestrian and 
otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast. 
The road was so lonely in the night, that 1 fell asleep to the 
monotonous sound of my own feet, doing their regular four miles 
an hour. Mile after mile 1 walked withaut the slightest sense of ex- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


67 


ertioD, dozing heavily and dreamini? constantly. It was only when 
1 made a stumble like a drunken man, or struck out into the road 
to avoid a horseman close upon me on the path — who had no exist- 
ence — that 1 came to myself and looked about. The day broke 
mistily (it was autumn-time), and 1 could not disembarrass myself 
of the idea that 1 had to climb those heights and banks of clouds, 
and that there was an Alpine Convent somewhere behind the sun, 
where 1 was going to breakfast. This sleepy notion was so much 
stronger than such substantial objects as villages and haystacks, that, 
after the sun was up and bright, and when 1 was sufficiently awake 
to have a sense of pleasure in the prospect, 1 still occasionally caught 
myself looking about for wooden arms to point the right track up 
the mountain, and wondering there was no snow yet. It is a curi- 
osity of broken sleep that I made immense quantities of verses on 
that pedestrian occasion (of course I never make any when 1 am in 
my right senses), and that I spoke a certain language once pretty 
familiar to me, but which I have nearly forgotten from disuse, with 
fluency. Of both these phenomena 1 have such frequent experience 
in the state between sleeping and waking, that 1 sometimes argue 
with myself that 1 know I cannot be awake, for if I were I should 
not be half so ready. The readiness is not imaginary, because I 
often ’3call long strings of the verses, and many turns of the fluent 
speech, after I am broad awake. 

My walking is of two kinds; one, straight on end to a definite 
goal at a round pace; one, objectless, loitering, and purely vaga- 
bond. In the latter state no gypsy on earth is a greater vagabond 
than myself; it is so natural to me, and strong with me, that 1 think 
I must be the descendant, at no great distance, of some irreclaima- 
ble tramp. 

One of the pleasantest things I have lately met with, in a vaga- 
bond course of shy metropolitan neighborhoods and small shops, 
is the fancy of a humble artist, as exemplified in two por- 
traits representing Mr. Thomas Sayers, of Great Britain, and 
Mr. John Heeuan, of the United Stales of America. These illustri- 
ous men are highly colored, in fighting trim and fighting attitude. 
To sugge.'^t the pastoral and meditative nature of their peaceful call- 
ing, Mr. Heenan is represented on emerald sward, with primroses 
and other modest flowers springing up under the heels of his half- 
boots; while Mr. Sayers is impelled to the administration of his 
favorite blow, the Auctioneer, by the silent eloquence of a village 
church. The humble homes of England, with their domestic virtues 
and honeysuckle porches, urge both heroes to go in and win; and 
the lark and other singing birds are observable in the upper air, 
ecstatically caroling their thanks to Heaven for a fight. On the 
whole, the associations entwined with the pugilistic art by this 
artist are much in the manner of Izaak Walton. 

But, it is with the lower animals of back-streets and by-ways 
that my present purpose rests. For human notes we may return 
to such neighborhoods when leisure and opportunity serye. 

Nothing in shy neighborhoods perplexes my mind more than the 
bad company birds keep. Foreign birds often get into good so- 
ciety, but British birds are inseparable from low associates. There 
2 S a w’hole street of them in St. Giles’s; and I always find them in 


68 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TEAYELERV 


poor and immoral neighborhoods, convenient to the puhlie-house', 
and the pawnbroker’s. They seem to lead people into drinking, ana 
even (he man who makes their cages nsnally gets into a chronic- 
state of black eye. Why is this? Also, they will do things for peo- 
ple in short-skirted velveteen coals with bone buttons, or in sleeved 
waistcoats and fur caps which they cannot be persuaded by the re- 
spectable enters of society to undertake. In a dirty court in 8pital- 
tields, once 1 found a goldtinch drawing his own water, and draw- 
ing as much of it as if lie were in a consuming fevtr. That gold- 
finch lived at a bird -shop, and offered in writing to barter himself 
against old clothes, empty Iwttles, or even kitchen stuff. Surely a 
low thing and a depraved taste in any finch. I bought that goldfinch 
for money. He was sent home, and flung upon a nail over against 
my table. He lived ontside a comnterfeit dwelling-house, supposed;; 
(as I argued) to be a dyer’s; otherwise it would have been imixrssi- 
ble to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. 
From the time of his appearance in my room either he left off being: 
thirsty— which was not in the bond— or he could not make up his 
mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let 
it go — a shock which in the best of limes bad made him tremble. He 
drew^ no water but by stealth, and under the cloak of night. After 
an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, the mer- 
chant who had educated him w^as appealed to. Tlie merchant was 
a bow-legged character, with a flat and cushiony nose, like the last 
new strawberry. He wore a fur cap and shorts, and was of the 
velveteen race, velveteeny. He sent word that he would “ look 
round.” He looked round, appeared in Die doorway of the room, 
and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a 
raging thirst beset that bird; when it was appeased he still drew 
several unnecessary buckets of w^ater, and finally leap(d about lii& 
perch and sharpened his bill, as if he had been to the nearest wine 
vaults and got drunk. 

Donkeys, again. 1 know shy neiirhborhoods where the donkey 
goes in at the street-door, and appears to live up-stairs, for 1 have- 
examined the bark yard from over the palings, and have been nn- 
r.ble tn make liim out. Gentility, nobility. Royalty, would appeal' 
to that donkey in 'vain to do what he does for the costermonger. 
Feed him witli oats at the highest price, put ai3^ infant prince and 
princess in a pair of panniers on his back, adjust his delicate trr.p- 
pings t(* a nicely, take him to the softest slopes at Windsor, and try 
what pace yon can get out of him. Then, starve him, harness him 
anyhow to a truck with a flat tray on it, and see him bowl from 
Whitechapel to Bayswater. There appears to be no partieular pri- 
vate understanding between birds and donkeys in a state of nature;: 
but, in the shy neighborhood state, yon shall see them always in the 
same bands, and always developing their very best energies for the 
very worst company. I have known a donkey — by sigid ; we w'^ere 
not on speaking terms — who lived over on the Sariey side of Lou- 
don Bridge, among Die fastnesses of Jacob’s Island and Dockliead. 
It was the habit of that animal, when his services were not in im- 
mediate requisition, to go out alone, idling. I have met him a mile 
from his place of residence, loitering about the streets; and the ex- 
pression of his countenance at such times was most degraded. He. 


THE UHCOMMEllCIAL TEAVELER. 


6 ^ 


was attached to the establislimeiit of an elderly lady who sold peri- 
winkles, and he used to stand on Saturday nights with a cartful of 
tliose delicacies outside a gin shop, pricking up his ears when a cus- 
tomer came to the cart, and too evidently deriving satisfaction 
from the knowledge that they got bad measures. His mistress was 
sometimes overtaken by inebriety. The last time 1 ever saw him 
(about five years ago) he was in circumstances of difficulty, caused 
by this failing. Having been left alone with the cart of periwinkles, 
and forgotten, he went oft idling. He prowled among his usual low 
haunts for some time, gratifying his depraved tastes, until, not tak- 
ing the cart into his calculations, he endeavored to turn up a narrow 
alley, and became greatly involved. He was taken into custody by 
the police, and the Green Yard of the district being near at hand, 
was backed into that place of durance. At that crisis 1 encountered 
him; the stubborn sense he evinced of being— not to compromise 
the expression— a blackboard, I never saw exceeded in the human 
subject. A flaring candle in a paper shade, stuck in among his 
periwinkles, showed him, with his ragged harness broken and his 
cart extensively shattered, twitching his mouth and shaking his 
hanging head, a picture of disgrace and obduracy. 1 have seen boys 
being taken to station-houses, who were as like him as his own 
brother. 

The dogs of shy neighborhoods 1 observe to avoid play, and to 
be conscious of poverty. They avoid work too, if they can, of 
course; that is the nature of all animals, I have the pleasure tO' 
know a dog in a back-street in the neighborhood of Walworth, who 
has greatly distinguished himself in the minor drama, and who 
takes his portrait with him when he makes an engagement, for tho 
illustration of the play-bill. His portrait (which is not at all like 
him) represents him in the act of dragging to the earth a recreant 
Indian, who is supposed to have tomahawked, or essayed to toma- 
hawk, a British officer. The design is pure poetry, for there is no- 
such Indian in the piece, and no such incident. He is a dog of the 
Newfoundland breed, for whose honesty I would be bail to any 
amount; but whose intellectual qualities in association with dra- 
matic fiction 1 cannot rate high. Indeed, he is too honest for the 
profession lie has entered. Being at a town in Y'orkshire last sum- 
mer, and seeing him posted in the bill of the night, I attended the 
performance. His first scene was eminently successful; but as it 
occupied a second in its representation (and five lines in the bill), it 
scarcely afforded ground for a cool and deliberate judgment of his 
powers. He had merely to bark, run on, and jump through an 
inn window after a comic fugitive. The next scene of importance 
to the fable was a little marred in its interest by his over-anxiety; 
forasmuch as while his master (a belated soldier in a den of robbers 
on a tempestuous night) was feelingly lamenting the absence of his 
faithful dog, and laying great stress on the fact that he was thirty 
leagues away, the faithful dog was barking furiously in the prompt- 
er’s box, and clearly choking himself agai st his collar. But it 
was in his greatest scene of all that his houjsly got the better of 
him. He had to enter a dense and trackless forest, on the trail of th€> 
murderer, and there to fly at the murderer when he found him rest- 
ing at the foot of a tree, with his victim bound ready for slaughter*. 


70 


THE UHCOMMERCrx\.L TRAVELER. 


It was a hot night, and he came into the forest from an altogether 
unexpected direction, in the sweetest temper, at a very deliberate 
trot, not in the least excited; trotted to the footlights with his 
tongue out; and there sat down, panting, and amiably surveying the 
audience, with his tail beating on the boards like a Dutch clock. 
Meanwhile, the murderer, impatient to receive his doom, was audi- 
bly calling to him, “ Co-o-ome here!” while the victim, struggling 
with his bonds, assailed him with the most injurious expressions. It 
happened, through these means, that when he^was in course of time 
persuaded to trot up and rend the murderer limb from limb, he made 
it (for dramatic purposes) a little too obvious that he worked out 
that awful retribution by licking butter oif his blood-stained hands. 

In a shy street, behind Long Acre, two honest dogs live, who per- 
form in Punch’s shows. I may venture to say that I am on terms 
of intimacy with both, and that I never saw either guilty of the 
falsehood of failing to look down at the man inside the show dur- 
ing the whole performance. The difficulty other dogs have in satisfy- 
ing their minds about these dogs appears never to be overcome by 
time. The same dogs must encounter them over and over again, as 
they trudge along in their off-minutes behind the legs of the show, 
and beside the drum; but all dogs seem to suspect their frills and 
jackets, and to sniff at them as if they thought these articles of per- 
sonal adornment an eruption— a something in the nature of mange 
perhaps. From this Covent Garden of mine I noticed a country 
dog only the other day who had come up to Covent Garden Market 
under a cart, and had broken his cord, an end of which he still 
trailed along with him. He loitered about the corners of the four 
streets commanded by my window; and bad London dogs came 
up, and told him lies that he didn’t believe; and worse London dogs 
came up, and made proposals to him to go and steal in the market, 
which his principles rejected; and the ways of the town confused 
him, and he crept aside and lay down in a doorway. He had 
scarcely got a wink of sleep, when up comes Punch with Toby. 
He was darting to Toby for consolation and advice, when he saw 
the frill, and stopped, in the middle of the street, appalled. The 
show was pitched, Toby retired behind the drapery, the audience 
formed, the drum and pipes struck up. My country do£r remained 
immovable, intently staring at these strange appearances, until 
Toby opened the drama by appearing on his ledge, and to him en- 
tered Punch, who put a tobacco-pipe into Toby’s mouth. At this 
spectacle the country dog threw up his head, gave one terrible 
, howl, and fled due west. 

We talk of men keeping dogs, but we might often talk more ex- 
pressively of dogs keeping men. I know a bull-dog m a shy corner 
of Hammersmith who keeps a man. He keeps him up a yard, and 
makes him go to public-houses and lay wagers on him, and obliges 
him to lean against posts and look at him, and forces him to neglect 
work for him, and keeps him under rigid coercion. 1 once knew a 
fancy terrier who kept a gentleman— a gentleman who had been 
brought up at Oxford, too. The dog kept the gentleman entirely 
for his glorification, and the gentleman never talked about anything 
but the terrier. This, however, was not in a shy neighborhood, 
and is a digression consequently. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 71 

There are a great many doas in sliy neighborhoods who keep 
boys. I have my eye on a mongrel in Somers Town who keeps three 
boys. He. feigns that he can bring down sparrows, and unburrow rats 
{he do neither), and he takes llie boys out on sporting pretenses into 
all sorts of suburban fields. Helms likewise made them believe that 
he possesses some mysterious knowledge of the art of fishing, and 
they consider themselves incompletely equipped for the Hampstead 
ponds, with a pickle-jar and a wide-mouthed bottle, unless he ia 
with them, and barking tremendously. There is a dog residing in 
the Borough of Southwark who keeps a blind man. He may be 
seeii, most days, in Oxford Street, hauling the blind man away on ex- 
peditions wdiolly uncontemplated by, and unintelligible to, the man: 
wholly of the dog’s conception and execution. Contrariwise, when 
the man has projects, the dog will sit down in a crowded thorough- 
fare, and meditate. I saw him yesterday wearing the money-tray 
like an easy collar, instead of offering it to the public, taking the 
man against his will, on the invitation of a disreputable cur, appar- 
ently to visit a dog at Harrow — he was so intent on that direction. 
The north wall of Burlington House Gardens, between the Arcade 
and the Albany^ offers a shy spot for appointment among blind 
men at about two or three o’clock in the afternoon. They sit (very 
uncomfortably) on a sloping stone there, and compare notes. Their 
dogs may always be observed, at the same time, openly disparaging 
the men they keep to one another, and settling where they shall re- 
specUrely take their men when they begin to move^^gain. At a 
smalTnutcher’s in a shy neighborhood (there is no reason for sup- 
pressing the name; it is by Notting Hill, and gives upon the dis- 
trict called the Potteries), 1 knew a shagiry black and vrhite dog 
who keeps a drover. He is a dog of an easy disposition, and too 
frequently allows this drover to get drunk. On -these occasions, it 
is the dog’s custom to sit outside the public-houses, keeping his 
eye on a few sheep, and thinking. I have seen him with six sheep, 
plainly casting up in his mind how many he began with when he 
left the market and at what places he has left the rest. I have seen 
him perplexed by not being able to account to himself for certain 
particular sheep. A light has gradually broken on him, he has re- 
membered at what butcher’s he left them, and in a burst of grave 
satisfaction has caught a fly off his nose, and shown himself much 
relieved. If 1 could at any time have doubted the fact that it was 
he who kept the drover, and not the drover who kept him, it would 
have been abundantly proved by his way of taking undivided 
charge of the six sheep, when the drover came out besmeared with 
red ocher and beer, and gave him wrong directions, which he 
calmly disregarded. He has tak§n the sheep entirely into his owm 
hands, has merely remarked, with respectable firmness: “That 
instruction would place them under an omnibus; you had better 
confine your attention to yourself — you will want it all;” and has 
driven his charge away, with an intelligence of ears and tail, and 
a knowledge of business, that has left his lout of a man very, very 
far behind. 

As the dogs 'of shy neighborhoods usually betray a slinking con- 
sciousness of being in poor circumstances — for the most part mani- 
fested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and 


72 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


a misgiving that somebody is. going to harness them to something, to 
pick up a living— -so the cats of shy neighborhoods exhibit a strong 
tendency to relapse into barbarism. Not only are they made 
selfishly ferocious by ruminating on the surplus population around 
them, and on the densely-crowded state of all the avenues to cai- 
•meat; not only is there a moral and politico-economical haggard- 
ness in them, traceable to these reflections, but they evince a phys- 
ical deterioration. Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got 
^ip; their black turns rusty, like old mourning; they wear very in- 
different fur, and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk 
welvet. I am on terms of recognition with several small streets of cats, 
•about the Obelisk in St, George’s Fields, and also in tlie vicinity of 
'Olerkenwell Green, and also in the back-settlementsof Drury Lane. 
In appearance they are very like the women among whom the}^ live. 
They seem to turn out of tlieir unwholesome beds into the streets 
■without any preparation. They leave their young families to stagger 
about the gutters unassisted, while they frouzily quarrel and swear 
and scralcli and spit at street corners. In particular 1 remark that 
when they are about to increase their families (an event of frequent 
occurrence), the resemblance is strongly expressed in a certain dusty 
dowdiness, down-at-heel self-neglect, and general giving up of 
things. 1 cannot honestly report that I have ever seen a feline ma- 
tron of this class washing her face when in an interesting condition. 

Not to prolong these notes of uncommercial travel among the 
lower animals of shy neighborhoods by dwelling at length upgui the 
•exasperate moodiness of the tom cats, anil llieir resemblance in 
many respects to a man and a brother, I will come to a close with 
a word on tlie fowls of the same localities. _ • 

That anything horn of an egg, and invested with wings, should 
have got to the pa'ss that it Imps contentedly down a ladder into a 
cellar, and calls that going home, is a circumstance so amazing as 
^0 leave one nothing morq,_^in this connection to wonder at. Other- 
wise I might wonder- at tlie completeness with which these fowls 
have become separated from all the birds of the air— have taken to 
•groveling in bricks and mortar and mud— have forgotten all about 
live trees, and make roosting-places of shop-boards, barrows, oyster 
tubs, bulk iieads, and door-scrapers. I wonder at nothing concern- 
ing them, and take them as tiiey are. 1 accept as products of Nat- 
ure and things of course a reduced Bantam family of my acquaint- 
ance in the Hackney Hoad, who are incessantly at the pawnbroker’s. 
1 cannot say that they enjoy themselves, for they are of a melan- 
choly temperament; but what enjoyment tliey are capable of, they 
derive from crowding together in the pawnbroker’s side-entry. 
Here they are always to be found in feeble flutter, as if they were 
newly come do^wn in the world, tl^d were afraid of being identified. 
1 know a low fellow, originally of a good family from Dorking, 
who lakes Ids whole establishment of wives, in single file, in at 
the door of the Jug Department of a disorderly tavern near the 
Haymarket, maneuvers them among the company’s legs, emerges 
with them at the Bottle Entrance, and so passes his life; seldom, in 
the season, going to bed before two in the morning. Over Waterloo 
.Bridge there is a shabby old speckled couple (they belong to the 
'Wooden French-bedstead, washing-stand, and towel-horse making 


THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TKAYELEE, 73 

trade), who are always trying t) get in at the door of a chnpel. 
Whether the old lady, under a delpsion reminding one ot IMrs.Souih- 
colt, has an idea of intrusting; an egg to that particular denonii na- 
tion, or merely understands that she has no business in the building, 
and is conseauently frantic to enter it, I cannot determine; but she 
is constantly endeavoring to undermine the principal door; wldle 
her partner, who is infirm upon his legs, walks up and down, en- 
couraging her, and defying the Univeise. But, the family 1 have 
been best acquainted with, since the removal from this ti\ing: 
sphere of a Chinese circle at Brentford, reside in the densest part of 
Bethnal Green. Their abstraction from the objects among vvhich 
they live, or rather, their conviction that those objects have all come- 
into existence in express subservience to fowls, has so enchanted 
me, that I have made them the subject of many journeys af divers 
hours. After careful observation of the two lords and ten ladies 
of whom this family consists, I have come to the conclusion that 
their opinions are represented by the leading lord and leading lady; 
the latter, as I judge, an aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of 
feather and visibility of quill, that gives her the appearance of a 
bundle of office pens. When a railway goods van that would crush 
an elephant comes round the corner, tearing over these fowls, they 
emerge unharmed from under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the 
whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left 
something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of 
kettles and saucepans, and fragments ot bonnets as a kind of 
meteoric discluirge for fowls to peck at. Pegtops and hoops they 
account, 1 think, as a sort of hail; shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew. 
Gas-light comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and 1 
have more than,, a suspicion that, in the minds of the twm lords, the 
early public-house at the corner has superseded the sun. 1 have 
established it as a certain fact that they always begin to crow when 
the public-house shutters begin to be taken dowm, and that they 
salute the potboy, the instant he appears to perform that duty, as if 
he were Phoebus in person. 


XL 

TRAMPS. 

The chance use of the word “ Tramp,” in my last paper, brought 
that numerous fraternity so vividly before my mind’s eye, that i 
had no sooner laid down my pen than a compulsion was upon me 
to take it up again, and make notes of the Tramps whom I perceived: 
on all the summer roads in all directions. 

Whenever a tramp sits down to rest by the wayside, he sits with 
his legs in a dry ditch; and whenever he goes to sleep (which is 
very often indeed), he* goes to sleep on his back. Yonder, by the 
high-road, glaring white in the bright sunshine, lies, on the dusty 
bit of turf under the bramble-bush that fences the coppice from the 
highway, the tramp of the order savage, fast asleep. He lies on the 
broad of his back, wdth his face turned up to the sky, and one of his 
ragged arms loosely throwii across his face. His bundle (what can 
be the contents of that mysterious bundle, to make it w'orlh his 


74 


THE UNC03OIEUCIAL TRAVELER. 


while to carry it about?) is thrown down beside him, and the wak- 
ing woman with him sits with her legs in the ditch, and her back to 
the road. She wears her bonnet rakishly perched on the front of 
her head, to shade her face from the sun in walking, and she ties 
her skirts around her in conventionally tight tramp fashion with a 
sort of apron. You can seldom catch sight of her, resting thus, 
without seeing her in a despondently defiant manner doing some- 
thing to her hair or her bonnet, and glancing at you between her 
fingers. She does not often go to sleep herself in the daytime, but 
will sit for any length of time beside the man. And his slumberous 
propensities would not seem to be referable to the fatigue of carry- 
ing the bundle, for she carries it much oftener and further than he. 
When they are afoot, you will mostly find him slouching on ahead 
in a gruff temper, while she lags heavily behind with the burden. 
He is given to personally correcting her, too — which phase of his 
character developes itself of tenest on benches outside ale-house doors 
— and she appears to become strongly attached to him .for these rea- 
sons; it may usually be noticed that, when the poor creature has a 
bruised face, she is the most affectionate. He has no occupation 
wdiatever, this order of tramp, and has no object whatever in going 
sanywhere. He will sometimes call himself a brickmaker, or a saw- 
yer, but only when he takes an imaginative flight. He generally 
represents himself, in a vague way, as looking out fora job of work; 
but he never did work, he never does, and he never will. It is a 
favorite fiction with him, however (as if he were the most industri- 
ous character on earth), that you never work; and, as he goes past 
your garden and sees you looking at your flowers, you will overhear 
him growl, with a strong sense of contrast, "'You are a lucky hidle 
devil, you are!” 

The slinking tramp is of the same hopeless order, and has the 
same injured conviction on him that you were born to whatever 
you possess, and never did anything to get it; but he is of a less 
audacious disposition. He will stop before your gate, and say to 
his female companion, with an air of constitutional humility and 
propitiation— to edify any one who may be within hearing behind a 
blind or a bush. “ This is a sweet spot, ain’t it? A lovely spot! 
And I wonder if they’d give two poor footsore travelers like me and 
you a drop of fresh water out of such a pretty gen teel crib? We’d 
take it very koind on ’em, wouldn’t us? Wery koind, upon my 
word, us would!” He has a quick sense of a dog in the vicinity, 
and will extend his modestly-injured propitiation to the dog chained 
up in your yard; remarking, as he slinks at the yard-gate, “Ah! 
You are a foine breed o’ dog, too, and you ain’t kept for nothink i 
I’d take it wery koind o’ your master if he’d help a traveler and his 
woife, as envies no gentlefolk their good fortun, wi’ a bit o’ your 
broken wittles. He’d never know the want of it, nor more would you. 
Don’t bark like that at poor persons, as never done you no ’arm ; the 
poor is down- trodden and broke enough without that. Oh, don’t!” 
He generally heaves a prodigious sigh in moving away, and always 
looks up the lane and down the lane, and up the road and down the 
road, before going on. 

Both of these orders of tramp are of a very robust habit; let the 
hard-working laborer, at whose cottage door they prowl and beg, 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 75 

have the ague never so badly, these tramps are sure to be in good 
health. 

There is another kind of tramp whom you encounter this bright 
summer-day — say, on a road with the sea-breeze making its dust 
lively, and sails of ships in the blue distance beyond the slope of 
down. As you walk enjoyingly on, you descry in the perspective, 
at the bottom of a steep hill up which your way lies, a figure that 
appears to be sitting airily on a gate, whistling in a cheerful and 
disengaged manner. As you approach nearer lo it, you observe the 
figure to slide down from the gate, to desist from whistling, to uncock 
its hat, to become tender of foot, to depress its head and elevate its 
shoulders, and to present all the characteristics of profound de- 
spondency. Arriving at the bottom of the hill, and coming close 
to the figure, you observe it to be the figure of a shabby young man. 
He is moving painfully forward, in the direction in which 3^11 are 
going, and his mind is so preoccupied with his misfortunes that he 
is not aware of your approach until you are close upon him at the 
hill-foot! When he is aware of you, you discover him to be a re- 
markably well-behaved 3 '’Oung man, and a remarkably well-spoken 
young man. You know him to be well-behaved by his respectful 
manner of touching his hat: you know him to be well-spoken by 
his smooth manner of expressing himself. He says, in a flowing 
confidential voice, and without punctuation, “ I ask your pardon 
sir if 30 )u will excuse the liberty of being so addressed upon the 
public 'ighway by one who is almost reduced to rags though it ’as 
not always been so and by no fault of his own but through ill elth in 
his family and many unmerited sufferings it would be a great obli- 
gation sir to know the time.” You give the well-spoken young 
man the time. The well-spoken young man, keeping well up with 
you, resumes: ”1 am aware'sir that it is a liberty to intrude a 
further question on a gentleman walking for his entertainment but 
might 1 make so bold as ask the favor of the way to Dover sir and 
about the distance?” You inform the well-spoken young man that 
the way to Dover is straight on, and the distance some eighteen miles. 
The well-spoken young man becomes greatly agitated. ” In the 
condition to which I am reduced,” says he, ” I could not ope to reach 
Dover before dark, even if my shoes were in a state to take me 
there or my feet were in a state to old out over the flinty road and 
were not on the bare ground of which any gentleman has the means 
to satisfy himself by looking Sir may I take the liberty of speaking 
to you?” As the well-spoken young man keeps so well up with 
you that you can’t prevent his taking the liberty of speaking to you, 
he goes on, with fluency: ” Sir it is not begging that is my intention 
for 1 was brought up by tlie best of mothers and begging is not my 
trade 1 should not know sir how to follow it as a trade if such were 
my shameful wishes for the best of mothers long taught otherwise 
and in the best of omes though now reduced lo take the present 
liberty on the Iway Sir my business was the law-stationering and I 
w'as favorably known to the Solicitor-General the Attorney-General 
the majority of the Judges and the ole of the legal profession but 
through ill elth in my family and treachery of a friend for whom I 
became security and he no other than my own wife’s brother the 
brotlier of my own wife I was cast forth with my tender partner 


76 


THE UHCOMMEllCIAL TRAVELER. 

nnd three yonne; children not to beg for I will sooner die of depriva- 
tion but to make my way to the seaport town of Dover where I 
have a relative i in respect not only that will assist me but that would 
trust me with untold gold Sir in appier limes and hare this calami y 
fell upon me I made for my amusement when 1 little thouglit that 
1 should ever need it excepting for my air this ” — here the well- 
spoken young man put his hand into his breast — “ this comb! Sir 
1 implore you in the name of charity to purchase a tortoise-shell 
comb which is a genuine article at any price that your humanity 
may put upon it and may the blessings of a ouseless family avvait- 
ing with beating arts the return of a husband and father from Dover 
upon the cold stone seats of London Bridge ever attend you Sir may 
I take the liberty of speaking to you I implore you to buy this 
comb!” By this time, being a reasonably good walker, you will 
have been too much for the well-spoken young man, who will stop 
short, and express his disgust and his want of breath in a long ex- 
pector itloD, as you leave him behind. 

Toward the end of the same walk, on the same bright summer 
day at the corner of the next little town or village, you may find 
another kind of tramp, embodied in the persons of a most ex*emplary 
couple, whose only improvidence appears to have been that they 
spent the last of their little All on soap. Tljey are a man and 
woman, spotless to behohl — John Anderson, with the frost on his 
short smock-frock instead of his ” pov/,” attended by Mrs, Ander- 
aon. John is over ostentatious of the frost upon his raiment, and 
wears a curious, and, you would say, an almost unnecessary demon- 
stration of girdle of white linen wound about his waist — a girdle 
snowy as Mrs, Anderson’s apron. This cleanliness was the expiring 
effort of the respectable c<mple, and nothing then remained to MrT 
Anderson but to get chalketl upon his spade, in snow-white copv- 
book characters. Hungry! and to sit down here. Yes; one tning 
more remained to Mr. Anderson— his character; Monarchs could 
m»t deprive him of his hard-earned character. Accordingly, as you 
come up with this spectacle of virtue iu distress, Mrs. Anderson 
rises, and witli a decent courtesy presents for your consideration a 
ceiiifieaie from a Doctor of Divinity, the Reverend the Vicar of 
Upper Dodgington, who informs his Christian friends and all whom 
if may concern that the bearers, John Anderson and lawful wife, 
are pet sons to whom you ctumoi be too liberal. This benevolent 
pa-tor omitted no work of his hands to fit the good couple out, for 
wii.h litdf {in eye you can recognize his autograph on the spade.' 

Another class of tramp is a man, the most valuable part of whose 
stoci'-in trtidc is a highlv- perplexed demeanor. He is got up like a 
<-ounirvman, and you will often come upon the poor fellow while 
lie is endeavoring to decipher the inscription on a milestone— quite 
a fruitless endeavor, for he cannot read.. He asks your pardon, he 
truly does (he is very slow of speech, this tramp, and he looks in a 
bewildered way all round ihe prospect while he talks to you), but 
all of us should do as we wold be done by, and he’ll take it kind it 
you 11 put a power man in the right road fur to line his eldest sou 
as has broke his leg bul in the masoning, and is iu this heere Orspit’l 
as IS wroltj down by Squire Pouncei by ’s own hand as wold not tell a 
Aie tur no man. He then produces from under his dark frock (being 


THE UHCOMMEROIAL TEAYKLEU. 


77 

•always very slow and perplexed) a neat but worn old leathern purse, 
iroin wliicii he takes a scrap of paper. On this scrap of paper is 
written, by {rquire PoiHicerl)y, of The Grove, “ Please to direct the 
Bearer, a poor hut worthy man, to tl\e Sussex County Hospital, 
near Brigliton ” — a matter of some difficulty at the moment, seeing- 
that tlie request comes suddenly upon you in the depths of Hert- 
fordshire. The m(>re you eruteavor lo indicate where Brighton is — 
when you have with the greatest difficulty remembered — the less the 
-devoted father can be made to comprehend, and the more obtusely 
he stares at the prospect; whereby, beinir reduced lo extremity you 
recommend the faithful parent to begin by going lo St. Albans, and 
present liim with half-a-crown. It does him good, no doubt, but 
scarcely helps liim forward, since you find liim lying drunk that 
same evening in the wheelwright’s saw-pit, under the shed where 
the feeled trees are, opposite the sign of the Three Jolly Hedgers, 

Blit the most vicious, by far, of all the idle tramps, is the tramp 
who pretends to have been a gentleman. “Educated,” he writes 
from the village beer-shop in pale ink of a ferruginous complexion; 
“ educate.^ at Trio. Coll. Cam., nursal in the lap of affluence, once 
in my small way the pidron of the Muses,” &c., &c., <fcc. — surely a 
sympa hetic mind will not withhold a trifle to help him on lo the 
market town where he thinks of giving a lecture to the fruges con- 
mimere nati, on things in ireneral? This shameful creature, lolling 
about the hedge tap-room.s in his ragged clotlies, now so far from 
being black that tliey lock as if they luver can have been black, is 
more selfl-^n and insolent than even the savage tramp. He would 
sponge on the poorest boy fora farthing, and spurn him when he 
bad got it; he would iiderpose fif he could get anything by it) be- 
tween the baby an.l the mother’s b’east. So much lower than the 
company he liccp.s, for hi- mauiilin assumption of being higher, 
this pitiless niscal Idights the summer roads as he maunders on be- 
tween the luxuriant hedges; where (to my thinking) ev- u the wild 
convolvuins and ros<^ and sweetbiier are the worse for his going by, 
•and need time lo recover from the taint of him in the air. 

The young fellows who trudge along barefoot, five or six to- 
getiur, tbcir b«>ots slung over llu ir shoulders, their shabby bundles 
uiui. r their aims, their slicks newly cut from some roadside wood, 
tu- u t eminently pn'po.vsessing, but are much less objectionable. 

is a tianip feliow'^ lup among them. Tliey pick one another 
un ai je.sling- siations, and go on in compaMies, They alvvays go at 
a fast swing — tliongh they ge’tu rally limp, too — and there is invari- 
ahlv <uie of tlie compimv who hat- much ado to keep up with tlie 
rest They genen 1 y talk about horses, and any other means of 
ioc.ornotion than walking; or, one of the company relates some 
recent experiences of the road — which are always disputes and 
difficulties. As for example: “ So, as I’m a standing at the pump 
in the market, Iflest if there don’t come up a Beadle, and he ses, 
‘Mustn't stand here,’ he ses. * Why not?’ 1 ses. ‘ No beggars 
allow'cd in this town,’ he ses. ‘Who’s a beggar?’ I ses. ‘You 
are,’ he ses. ‘ Who ever .see me beg? Didiyou?' I ses. ‘Then 
you’re a tramp,’ he ses, ‘ I’d rallier be that than a Beadle,’ 1 ses.” 
(The compan}^ expressed great approval.) “ ‘ Would you?' he ses 
to me. ‘ Yes, I would,’ I ses lo him. ‘ Well,’ he ses, ‘ anyhow. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


18 

get out of this town.’ ‘ Why, blow your little town!’ 1 ses. ‘ Who 
wants to be in it? Wot does your dirty little town mean by cornin' 
and slickin’ itself in the road to anywhere? Why don’t set a 
shovel and a barrer, and clear your town out o’ people’s way?’ ” 
(The company expressing the highest approval, and laughing aloud, 
they all go down the hill.) 

Then there are the tramp handicraft men. Are they not all over 
England in this midsummer-time? Where does the lark sing, the 
corn grow, the mill turn, the river run, and they are not among the 
lights and shadows, tinkering, chair-mending, umbrella-mending, 
clock mending, knife-grinding? ISurely a pleasant thing, if wo 
were in that condition of life, to grind our way through Kent, Sus- 
sex, and Surrey. For the first six weeks or so, we should see the 
sparks we ground off fiery bright against a background of green 
wheat and green leaves. A little later, and the.ripe harvest would 
pale our sparks from red to yellow, until we got the dark newly- 
turned land for a background again, and they were red once more. 
By that time we should have ground our way to the sea cliffs, and 
the whirr of our wheel would be lost in the breaking of the waves. 
Our next variety in sparks would be derived from contrast with the 
gorgeous medley of colors in the autumn woods, and by the time 
we had ground our way round to the healthy lands between Reigate 
and Croydon, doing a prosperous stroke of business all along, we 
should show like a little firework in the light frosty air, and be the 
next best thing to the blacksmith’s forge. Very agreeable, too, to 
go on a chair-mending tour. What judges we should be of rushes, 
and how knowingly (with a sheaf and a bottomless chair at our 
back) we should lounge on bridges, looking over at osier-beds! 
Among all the innumerable occupations that cannot possibly be 
transacted without the assistance of lookers-on, chair-mending may 
take a station in the first rank. When we sat down with our backs 
against the barn or the public-house, and began to meud, what a 
sense of popularity would grow upon us! When all the children 
came to look at us, and the tailor, and the general dealer, and the 
fanner who had been giving a small order at the little saddler’s, 
and the groom from the great house, and the publican, and even the 
two skittle-players (and here note, howsoever busy all the rest of 
village humankind may be, there will always be two people with 
leisure to play at skittles, wherever village skittles are), what en- 
couragement would be on us to plait and weave! 4^0 one looks at 
118 while we plait and weave these words. Cloclc'-inending again. 
Except for the slight inconvenience of carrying a clock under our 
arm, and the monotony of making the bell go whenever we came to 
a human habitation, what a pleasant privilege to give a voice to the 
dumb cottage clock, and set it talking to the cottage family again! 
Likewise, we foresee great interest in going round by the park plan- 
tations, under the overhanging boughs (hares, rabbits, partridges, 
and pheasants, scudding like mad across and across the checkered 
ground before us), and so over the park ladder, and through the 
wood, until we came to the Keeper’s lodge. Then would the 
Keeper be discoverable at his door, in a deep nest of leaves, smok- 
ing ids pipe. Then, on our accosting him, in the way of our trade, 
would he call to Mrs. Keeper respecting “ t’ould clock ” in the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


79 


kitchen. Then woiiUl Mrs, Keeper ask us into the lodce, and, on 
due examination, we should offer to make a good job of it for 
eighteen-pence; which offer, being acccepted, would set us tinkling 
and clinking among the chubby awe-struck little Keepers for an 
hour and more. So completely to the family’s satisfaction would 
we achieve our work, that the Keeper would mention how that there 
was something wrong with the bell of the turret stable clock up at 
the Hall, and that, if we thought good of going up to the house- 
keeper on the chance of that job too, why he would take us. Then 
should we go, among the branching oaks and the deep fern, by 
silent wa3'8 of mystery known to the Keeper, seeing the herd glanc- 
ing here and there as we went along, until we came to the old Hall, 
solemn and grand. Under the Terrace Flower Garden, and round 
by the stables, would the Keeper take us in. and as we passed, we 
should observe how spacious and stately the stables, and how fine 
the painting of the horses’ names over their stalls, and how solitary 
all; the family being in London. Then should we find ourselves 
presented to the housekeeper, sitting, in hushed state at needlework, 
in a bay window, looking out upon a mighty grim red-brick quad- 
rangle, guarded by stone lions disrespectfully throwing summersaults 
over the escutcheons of the noble family. Then, our services ac- 
cepted, and we insinuated with a candle into the stable turret, we 
should find it to be a mere question of [lendulum, but one that 
would bold us until dark. Then should we fall to work, with a 
general impression of Ghosts being about, and of pictures indoors 
that of a certainty came out of their frames and “ walked,” if the 
family would only own it. Then should we work and work, until 
the day gradually turned to dusk, and even until the dusk gradually 
turned to dark. Our task at length accomplished, we should be 
taken into an enormous servants’-hall, and there regaled with beef 
and bread, and powerful ale. Then, paid freely, we should be at 
liberty to go, and should be told by a pointing helper to keep round 
over 3'inder by the blasted ash. and so straight through the woods 
till w'e should see the town fights right afore us. Then, feeling 
lonesome, should we desire, upon the whole, that the ash had not 
been blasted, or that the helper had had the manner^ not to men- 
tion it. However, w^e should keep on all right, till suddenly the 
stable bell would strike ten in the dolefullest way, quite chilling 
our blood, though w^e had so lately taught him how to acquit him- 
self. Then, as we went on, should we recall old stories, and dimly 
consider wdiat it would be most advisable to do, in the event of a 
tall figure all in white, wMth saucer eyes, coming up and saying, ” I 
want you to come to (he church-3'^ard and mend a church clock. 
Follow me!” Then should we make a burst to get clear of the 
trees, and should soon find ourselves in the open, wdth the town 
lights bright ahead of us. So should we lie that night at the ancient 
sign of the Crispin and Crispanus, and rise early next morning to 
be betimes on tramp again. 

Bricklayers often tramp in twos and threes, lying b3'^ night at 
their ” lodges,” which are scattered all over the country. Brick- 
laying is another of the occupations that can >33’^ no means be trans- 
acted in rural parts without the assistance of spectators— of as many 
as can be convened. In thinly peopled spots I have known brick- 


80 THE UHCOMMEECIAL T-KAVELER..\ 

layers on tramp, comino; jup with bricklayers at work, to be &a 
sensible of the indispensability of lookers-on,. tlvaJ they themselves- 
have set up in that capacity, and have Inen unable to subside into- 
the acceptance of: a proffered share in the job for two or three days- 
together. Sometimes the “ navvy/' on tramp, with an extra pair 
of half boots over his should* r, a bug, a bottle; and a can, wilt lake' 
a similar part in a job of excavation, and will look at it,, without- 
engaging in it, until all his money is gone. The current of my un- 
commercial pursuits caused me only last summer to want a little 
body of workmen for a certain spell of work in a pleasant part of 
the country; and 1 was at one time honored with the- attendance of 
as many as seveu-and-twenty, who w'ere looking at six. 

Who can be familigr with any rustic highway in summer-time, 
without storing up knowledge of the many trampe who go from one- 
oasis of town or village to another, to sell a stock-in-trade, ap- 
parently not worth a shilling when sold? Shrimps are a favorite 
commodity for this kind of speculation, and so are cakes of a soft 
and spongy character, coupled with Spanish nuts and brandy-balls. 
The stock is carried on the head in a basket, and between the' beat! 
and the basket are the trestles on which the stock is displayed at 
trading times. Fleet of foot, hut a careworn class of tramp this^, 
mostly; with a certain stiffness of neck, occasioned by much anxious, 
balancing of baskets; and also with a long Chinese sort of eye, 
which an overweighted forehead would seem to have squeezed into 
that form. 

On the hot dusty roads near seaport towns and great rivers, be- 
hold the trampling Soldier. And if you shouhl happen never to 
have asked yourself whether his uniform is suited to his work, per- 
haps the poor fellow’s appearance, as he comes distressfully toward 
you, with his absurdly tight jacket unbuttoned, his neck-gear in his 
hand, and his legs well chafed by his trovvsers of baize, may sug- 
gest the personal inquiry, how you throk you would like it? Much 
better the tramping Sailor, although his cloth is somewhat too thick 
for land service. But, why the tramping merchant- mate should 
put on a black velvet waistcoat, fgx a chalky country in the dog- 
day’^s, is one of the great secrets of nature Uiat will never be discov- 
ered. 

1 have my eye upon a piece of Kentish road, bordered ©a either 
side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road dust and , 
the trees, a skirting patch of grass. Wild flowers grow in abun- 
dance on this spot, and it lies high anil airy, with a distant river 
steadily stealing away to the oceau, like a man’s life. To gain tbe 
milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, bluebells, and 
wild roses would soon render illegible but for j&eering travelers push- 
ing them aside witli their sticks, you must eome up a steep hill, 
come which wa)^ you may. So, all the tramps with carts or caia- 
vans — the Gipsy Tramp, Ihe Show Trump,, the Cheap Jack — find it 
impossible to resist the temptations of the place, and all turn the 
horse loose when they come to it, and boil the ix)t. Bless the place, 

1 love tlic ashes of the vagabond fires that have scorched its grassl 
What tramp children do I see here, attired in aliandfulof rags, 
making a gymnasium of the shads of the cart, making a feather bti 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRxiVELER. 


81 

of the flints and brambles, making a toy of the hobbled old horse 
■who is not much more like a horse than any cheap toy would be! 
Here do 1 encounter the carls of mats and brooms and baskets — with 
all thou.iihts of business ‘^iven to the evening wind— with the stew 
made and being served out — with Cheap Jack and Dear Gill striking, 
soft music out of the plates that are rattled like warlike cymbals 
when put up for auction at fairs and markets — their minds so influ- 
enced (no doubt) by the melody of the niirhtingales, as they begin: 
to sing in the woods behind them, that if 1 were to propose to deal, 
they would sell me anything at cost price. On this hallowed 
ground has it been my happy privilege (let me whisper it) to- behold 
the White-haired Lady with the pink eyes eating meat-pie with the: 
Giant: while, by the hedge-side, on the box of blankets which ! 
knew contained the snakes, were set forth the cups and saucers and 
the teapot. It was on an evening in August that 1 chanced upon 
this ravishing spectacle, and 1 noticed that, whereas the Giant re- 
clined half concealed beneath the overhanging boughs, and seemed 
indifferent to Nature, the white hair of the gracious Lady streamed 
free in the breath of evening, and her pink eyes found pleasure in 
the landscape. I heard only a single sentence of her uttering, yet it 
bespoke a talent for modest repartee. The ill-mannered Giant— ac- 
cursed be his evil race! — had interrupted the lady in some remark,, 
and, as 1 passed that enchanted corner of the wood, she genll 3 ’- re- 
proved him with the words, “Now, Cobby” — Cobby! so short & 
name! — “ ain’t one fool enough to talk at a time?” 

Within appropriate distance of this magic ground, though not so- 
near it as that the song trolled from tap or bench at door can invaile- 
its woodland silence, is a little hostelry which no man possessed o£ 
a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather. Before its en- 
trance are certain pleasant trimmed limes; likewise a cool well, with 
so musical a bucket handle, that its fall upon the bucket rim will 
make a horse prick up his ears and neigh upon the drought^ road 
half a mile off. This is a house of great resort for hay- making 
tramps and harvest tramps, insomuch that as they sit within, drink- 
ing their mugs of beer, their relincpiished scythes and reaping-hooks, 
glare out of the open windows, as if the whole establishment were a 
family war coach of Ancient Britons. Later in the season, the- 
whole country-side, for miles and miles, will swarm with hopping; 
tramps. They come in families, men, women, and children, every 
family provided with a bundle of bedding, an iron pot, a number of 
babies, and, too often, with some poor sick creature quite unfit for 
the rough life, for whom they suppose the smell of the fresh hops to 
be a sovereign remedy. Many of ihese hoppers are Irish, but many 
come from London. They crowd all I he roads, and camp un<ler 
all the hedges and on all the scraps of common-land, and live 
among and upon the hops until they are all picked, and the hop 
gardens, so beautiful through the summer, look as if they had been 
laid waste by an invading army. Then there is a vast exodus of 
tramps out of the country; and if you ride or drive round any turn 
of any road at more than a foot pace, you will be bewildered to 
find that you have charged into the bosom of fifty families, and that 
there are splashing up all around you, in the utmost prodigality <>f. 
confusion, bundles of bedding, babies, iron pots, and a goo i- 


82 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TKAVELERc 

humored multitude ot both sexes and all ages, equally divided be- 
tween perspiration and intoxication. 


XU. 

DULLBOKOUGH TOWN. 

It lately happened that I found myself rambling about the scenes 
among which my earliest days were passed: scenes from which 1 
departed when I was a child, and which 1 did not revisit until I 
was a man. This is no uncommon chance, but one that befalls 
some of us any day. Perhaps it may not be quite uninteresting to 
compare notes with the reader respecting an experience so familial, 
and a journey so uncommercial. 

1 call my boyhood’s home (and 1 feel like a Tenor in an English 
Opera when I mention it) Dullborough. Most ot us c'ome from 
Dullborough who come from a country town. 

As 1 left Dullborough in the days when there were no railroads 
in the land, 1 left it in a stage-coach. Through all the years that 
have since passed have 1 ever lost the smell of the damp straw in 
which 1 was packed— like game— and forwarded, carriage paid, to 
the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London? There was no 
other inside passenger, and 1 consumed ray sandwiches in solitude 
and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and I thought life 
sloppier than 1 had expected to find it. 

With this tender remembrance upon me, 1 was cavalierly shunted 
back into Dullborough the other day by train. My ticket had been 
previously collected, like my taxes, and my shining new portmanteau 
had had a great plaster stuck upon it, and 1 had been defied by Act 
of Parliament to offer an objection to anything that was done to it, 
or me, under a penalty of not less than forty shillings, or more than 
five pounds, compoundable for a term of imprisonment. When 1 
had sent my disfigured property on to the hotel, 1 began to look 
about me; and the first discovery I made was, that the Station had 
swallowed up the playing-field. 

It was gone. The two beautiful hawthorn trees, the hedge, the 
liirf, and all those buttercups and daisies had given place to the 
stoniest of jolting roads; while, be 3 ''ond the Station, an ugly dark 
monster of a tunnel kept its jaws open, as if it had swallowed them, 
and were ravenous for more destruction. The coach that had car- 
ried me away was melodiously called Timpson’s Blue-Eyed Maid, 
and belonged to Timpson, at the coach-office up street ; the loco- 
motive engine that had brought me back was called severely No. 97, 
and belonged to S. E. R., and was spitting ashes and hot water over 
the blighted ground. 

When 1 had been let out at the platform door, like a prisoner 
whom his turnkey grudgingly released, 1 looked in again, over the 
low wall, at the scene of departed glories. Here, in the hay-making 
time, had 1 been delivered from the dungeons of Seringapatam, an 
immense pile (of haycock), by my counlr 3 ’^men, the victorious British 
(boy next door, and his two cousins), and had been recocnized with 
ecstasy by my afiianced one (Miss Green), who had come all the way 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAYELER. 83 

from England (second house in the terrace) to ransom me, and 
marry me. Here had I first heard in confidence, from one whose 
father was greatly connected, being under Government, of the ex- 
istence of a terrible banditti, called “ The Radicals,” whose princi- 
ples were, that the Prince Regent wore stays, and that nobody had 
a right to any salary, and that the army and navy ought to be put 
down— horrors at which I trembled in my bed, after supplicating 
that the Radicals might be speedily taken and hanged. Here, too, 
had we, the small hoys of Boles’s, had that cricket match against 
the small boys of Coles’s, when Boles and Coles had actually met 
upon the ground, and when, instead of instantly hitting out at one 
another with the utmost fury, as we had all hoped and expected, 
those sneaks had said respectively, “1 hope Mrs. Boles is well,” 
and “I hope Mrs. Coles and the baby are doing charmingly. 
Could it be that, after all this, and much more, the playing-field was 
a Station, and No. 97 expectorated boiling water and red-hot cinders 
on it, and the whole belonged by Act of Parliament to S. E. R. ? 

As it could be, and was, I left the place with a heavy heart for a 
walk all over the town. And first of Timpson’s up street. When 1 de- 
parted from Dullborough in the strawy arms of Timpson’s Blue-Eyed 
Maid, Timpson’s was a moderate sized coach-office (in fact, a little 
coach -office), with an oval transparency in the window, which 
looked beautiful by night, representing one of Timpson’s coaches 
in the act of passing a milestone on the Loudon road with great 
velocity, completely filled inside and out, and all the passengers 
dressed in the first style of fashion, and enjoying themselves tre- 
mendously. I found no such place as Timpson’s now— no such 
bricks and rafters, not to mention the name — no such edifice on the 
teeming earth. Pickford had come and knocked Timpson’s down. 

Pickford had not only knocked Timpson’s down, but had 
knocked two or three hbuses down on each side of Timpson’s, and 
then had knocked the whole into one great establishment with a 
pair of big gates, in and out of which his (Pickford’s) wagons are, 
in these days, always rattling, with their drivers sitting up so high, 
that they look in at the second-floor windows the old-fashioned 
houses in the High Street as they shake the town. 1 have not the 
honor of Pickford’s acquaintance, but 1 felt that he had done me 
an injury, not to say committed an act of boyslaugliter, in run- 
ning over ray childhood in this rough manner; and if ever I meet 
Pickford driving one of his own monsters, and smoking a pipe 
the while (which is the custom of his men), he shall know by the 
expression of my eye, if it catches his, that there is something 
wrong between us. 

Moreover, I felt that Pickford had no right to come rushing into 
Dullborough, and deprive the town of a public picture. Pie is not 
Kapoleon Bonaparte. When he took down the transparent stage- 
coach, he ought to have given thS town a transparent van. With a 
gloomy conviction that Pickford is wholly utilitarian and unimag- 
inative, 1 proceeded on my way. 

It is a mercy 1 have not a, red and green lamp and a night bell at 
my door, for in my very young days I was taken to so many 
lyings-in, that I w’onder 1 escaped becoming a professional martyr 
to them in after life. I supposed 1 had a very sympathetic nurse. 


84 


THE EKCOMMEECIAL TKAVELER. 


a large circle of married acquaintance. However that was, as 
I continued my walk througli Dullborough, 1 found many houses 
to be solely associated in my mind with lliis particular interest. At 
one little greengrocer’s shop, down certain steps from the street, I 
remember to have waited on a lady who had had four children (1 
am afraid to write five, though I fully believe it was five) at a birth. 
This meritorious woman held quite a reception in her room on the 
morning when I was introduced there, and the sight of the house 
brought vividly to my mind how the four (five) deceased young 
people lay, side by side, on a clean cloth on a chest of drawers; re- 
minding me, by a homely association, which 1 suspect their com- 
plexion to have assisted, of pigs’-feet as they are usually displayed 
at a neat tripe siiop. Hot caudle was handed round on the occa- 
sion, and 1 further remembered, as I stood contemplating the green- 
grocer’s, that a subscription was entered into arnona: the company, 
which became extremely alarming to my consciousness of having 
pocket money on my person. This fact being known to my con- 
ductress, whoever slie was, I was earnestly exliorted to contribute, 
but resolutely declined : tnerein disgusting the company, who gave 
me to understand that 1 must dismiss all expectations of going to 
Heaven. 

How does it happen that, when all else is changed wherever one 
goes, there yet seem, in every place, to be some few people who 
never alter? As the sight of the greengrocer’s house recalled these 
trivial incidents of long ago, the identical greengrocer appeared on 
the steps, with his hands in his pockets, and leaning his shoulder 
airainst the dooi-post, as my childish eyes had seen him many a 
time; indeed, there was his old mark on "the door-post yet, as if his 
shadow had become a fixture tlrnre. It was be himself; be might 
formerly have been an old-looking young man, or he miglit now be 
a young-looking old man, but there he was.* In walking along the 
street, 1 had as yet looked in vain for a familiar face, or even a trans- 
mitted face; here was the very greengrocer who had been weighing 
and liandling baskets on the morning of the reception. Ashe brought 
with him a dawning remembrance that he had had no proprie- 
tary interest in tliose babies, 1 crossed the road, and accosted him 
on the subject. He was not in the least excited or gratified, or in 
any way roused, by the accuracy of my recollection, but said. Yea, 
summut out of the common— he didn’t remember how many it was 
(as if half a dozen babes either way made no difference) — had hap- 
pened to a Mrs. What’s-her-name, as once lodged there — but he 
didn’t call it to mind, particular. Nettled by this phlegmatic con- 
duct. 1 informed him that l had left the town when 1 was a child. 
He slowly returned quite unsofteued, and not without a sarcastic 
kind of complacency. Had I? Ah! And did 1 find it had got on 
tolerably well without me? Such is the difference (1 thought when 
1 had left him a few hundred yants behind, and was by so much in 
a better temper) between going away from a place and remaining in 
it, I had no right, I reflected, to be angry with the greengrocer for 
his want of interest: I was nothing to him; whereas he was the 
town, the cathedral, the bridge, the river, my childhood, and a 
large slice of my life, to nie. 

Of course the town had shrunk fearfully since I was a child 


THE UKGOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


85 


there. I had entertained the impression that the High 8fr<et was 
at least as wide as Recent Street, Loudon, or tlie ttuiian Bouli vjird 
at Paris 1 found it little better than a lane. There a public 
clock in it, which 1 had supposed to be the finest clock in the world: 
whereas it now turned out to be as inexpresidve, moon faced, and 
\veak a clock as ever 1 saw. It belonged to a Town hall, where I 
had seen an Indian (who 1 now suppose wasn’t an Indian) swallow 
a swoid (which 1 now^ suppose he didn’t). Tlie edifice had ?ii)peiued 
to me, in those days, so glor ous a structure, tliat I had sei it up in 
my mind as the model on which the Genie of the Lamp built the 
palace for Aladdin. A mean httle brick heap like a d( ment( d 
chapel, wdth a few yawning persons in leather gaiters, ami in the 
last extremit}’- for something to do, lounging at the door with their 
bands in tlieir pockets, and calling themselves a Corn Exchange! 

Tile Theater was in existence, 1 found, on askiiig the fi^lunonge^, 
who had a compact show of stock in Ids window, cmifi^ting of a 
sole and a qnartof shrimps — and I resolved to comfoit my mind by 
going to look at it. Ricbaid the Thiid, in a very unc(tmf(.rlMble 
cloak, had first appeared to me there, and had made my heart leap 
with terror by backing up against the stage box in which 1 was 
posted, wliile struggling for life against the virtuous Kiclimnnd. 
It was witldu those walls that I hfd learnt, as from a page of En- 
glish history, how^ that wdeked King slept in war-time on a sofa 
much too short f( r liim, and how ftarfully his conscience tiouhled 
his boots. Tlxre, loo, had I first seen the funny count! y man, but 
count! ynian of noble principles, in a flow'ered waistcoat, cli nch up 
his little hat and throw it i n the ground, and pull oB his coat, say- 
ing, “ Dom thee, squire, coom on with thy fisies, then ” Ai which 
the lovel,y yoiuiir woman who kept conqiany with liim bind who 
went out git aning in a nariow white muslin apron, with five beau- 
tiful bars of five differeut ctdortd ribbons across it) was so fright- 
ened for his S5ike, thai she fainied tway. Many wondrous st crets 
of Nature had I come lo the knowletige of in th;!! sanciuaiy, of 
■which not the bast terrific weie, that the witclies in “Mtubtih ” 
bo!c an awful resemblance to the Thanes and other pr^pt r inhab- 
itants of Sccthiud ; and that the good King Duncan couhin’t it si in 
Itis grave, but was eonslanlly condng out of it, and calling himself 
somebody else. To the I'liCider, theufore, 1 repiiiied for consola- 
tii ii. But I found vt i y little, foi it was in a bad and dtelining 
way. A (ita’er in wint and bt tiled luer had alnady squeiZKi Ids 
iiaile into the box ( tfice, and the lluatiical money was takt n— when 
it came— in a k ud < I m(al->afe in the passage. The dtjder in w ine 
snd botthd laei n usi have insinuated himselt umier the stage too; 
for he anmu.ndtl that he l ad vane us descriptions of alcoholic 
diii ks “ in tlie wi'Od ’ and ilitie was no possible stowage foi the 
wood anyw here else. Evid< nlly, he was by degrees eating the estab- 
lishment away lo the ci le, ami wu uld mxui have sole possession of 
it. It was To Let, ami l;oj,e!«ssly so, for its old puiposes; and 
there had been no ( iiK rtaiiunent w illdnits walls for a long lime 
except a Panorama; and even that had been announced as “ pleas- 
ingly insiMKlive*.” and I know le^et well the fatal nieaning and the 
leaden import of tliose tenibie expressions. No, there w'as no reim- 
fort in the Theater.' It was mysteriously gone, like my own youth. 


THE UKCOMMEECIAL TEAVELEE. 


86 

Unlike my own youth, it might he coming back some day; but there 
■was little promise of it. 

As the town was placarded with references to the Diillborough 
Mechanics’ Institution, 1 thought I would go and look at that estab- 
lishment next. There had been no such thing in the town in my 
young day, and it occurred to me that its extreme prosperity might 
have brought adversity upon the Drama. I found the Institution 
with some difiBculty, and should scarcely have known that I had 
found it if I had judged from its external appearance only; but this 
was attributable to its never have been finished, and having no 
front: consequently, it led a modest and retired existence up a 
stable-yard. It was (as I learnt on inquiry) a most flourishing In- 
stitution and of the highest benefit to the to wm: two triumphs which 
1 was glad to understand were not at all impaired by the seeming 
drawbacks that no mechanics belonged to it, and that it was steeped 
in debt to the chimney-pots. It had a large room, which was ap- 
proached by an infirm stepladder: the builder having declined to 
construct the intended staircase without a present payment in cash, 
which Dullborough (though profoundly appreciative of the Institu- 
tion) seemed unaccountably bashful about subscribing. The large 
room had cost — or would, when paid for — five hundred pounds; 
and it had more mortar in it, and more echoes, than one might have 
expected to get for the money. It was fitted up with a platform, 
and the usual lecturing tools, including a large blackboard of a 
menacing appearance. On referring to lists of the courses of lect- 
ures that had been given in this thriving Hall, I fancied I detected 
a shyness in admitting that human nature, when at leisure, has any 
desire whatever to be relieved and diverted; and a furtive sliding in 
of any poor make-weight piece ot amusement shamefacedly and 
edgewise. Thus, I observed that it was necessary for the members 
to be knocked on the head with Gas, Air, Water, Food, the Solar 
S3'stem, and Geological periods, Criticism on Milton, the Steam- 
engine, John Bunyan, and Arrow-headed Inscriptions, before they 
might be tickled b}’^ those unaccountable choristers, the negro sing- 
ers in the court costume of the reign of George the Second. Like- 
wise, that they must be stunned by a weighty inquiry whether there 
was internal evidence in Shakespeare’s wu)rks to prove that his uncle 
by the mother’s side lived for some years at Stoke-Newington, be- 
fore they were brought-to by a Miscellaneous Concert. But, indeed, 
the masking of entertainment, and pretending it w^as something 
else— as people mask bedsteads when they are obliged to have them 
in sitting-rooms, and make believe that they are bookcases, solas, 
chests of drawers, anything rather than bedsteads — was manifest 
even in the pretense of dreariness that the unfortunate entertainers 
themselves felt obliged in decency to put forth wdien they came here. 
One very agreeable professional singer, w^ho traveled with two pro- 
fessional ladies, knew better than to introduce either of those ladies 
to sing the ballad “ Cornin’ through the Rye,” without prefacing it 
himself with some general remarks on wdieat and clover; and. even 
then, he dared not for his life call the song a song, but disguised it 
in the bill as an “ Illustration.” in the library also— fitted with 
shelves for three thousand book§, and containing upward of one 
hundred and seventy (presented copies mostly), seething their edges 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


87 

in damp plaster— there was such a painfully apologetic return of 62 
offenders who had read Travels, Popular Biography, and mere 
Fiction descriptive of the aspirations of the hearts and souls of mere 
human creatures like themselves; and such an elaborate parade of 
2 bright examples who had had down Euclid after the da 5 ’-’s occu- 
pation and confinement; and 3 who had had down Metaphysics after 
ditto, and 1 who had had down Theology after ditto; and 4 who 
had worried Grammar, Political Economy, Botany, and Logarithms 
all at once after ditto; that I suspected the boasted class to be one 
man, who had been hired to do it. 

Emerging from the Mechanics’ Institution, and continuing my 
walk about the town, 1 still noticed everywhere the prevalence, to 
an extraordinary degree, of this custom of putting the natural 
demand for amusement out of sight, as some untidy housekeepers 
put dust, and pretending that it was swept away. And yet it was 
ministered to, in a dull and abortive manner, by all who made this 
feint. 

Looking in at what is called in Dullborough “ the serious 
book-seller’s,” where, in my childhood, 1 had studied the faces of 
numbers of gentlemen depicted in rostrums with a gas-light on each 
side of them, and casting my eyes over the open pages of certain 
printed discourses there, 1 found a vast deal of aiming at jocosity 
and dramatic effect, even in them — yes, verily, even on the part of 
one very wrathful expounder who bitterly anathematized a poor little 
Circus. Similarly, in the reading provided for the young people 
enrolled in the Lasso of. Love, and other excellent unions, 1 found 
the writers under a distressing sense that they must start (at all 
events) like story-tellers, and delude the young persons into the be- 
lieve that they were going to be interesting. As 1 looked in at this 
window for twenty minutes by the clock, 1 am in a position to offer 
a friendly remonstrance — not bearing on this pariicular point — to 
the designers and engravers of the pictures in those publications. 
Have they considered the awful consequences likely to flow from 
their representations of Virtue? Have they asked themselves the 
question, whether the terrific prospect of acquiring that fearful 
chubbiness of head, unwieldiness of arm, feeble dislocation of leg, 
crispiness of hair, and enormity of shirt collar, which they repre- 
sent as inseparable from Goodness, may not tend to confirm sensi- 
tive waverers in Evil? A most impressive example (if 1 had be- 
lieved it) of what a Dustman and a Sailor may come to, wdien they 
mend their ways, was presented to me in this same shop-window. 
When they were leaning (they were intimate friends) against a post, 
drunk and reckless, with surpassingly bad hats on, and their hair 
over their foreheads, they were rather picturesque, and looked as if 
they might be agreeable men, if they would not be beasts. But, 
when they got over their bad propensities, and when, as a conse- 
quence, their heads had swelled alarmingly, their hair had got so 
curly that it lifted their blown- out cheeks up, their coat-cuffs were 
so long that they never could do any work, and their e 3 ’^es were so 
wide open that they never could do any sleep, they presented a 
spectacle calculated to plunge a timid nature into the depths of 
Infamy. 

But the clock that had so degenerated since 1 saw it last, ad- 


88 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

monished me that I had stayed here long enough ; and 1 resumed; 
mv walk. 

I had not gone fifty paqes along the street when I was suddenly 
brought up by the sight of a man who got out of a little phaeton at 
the doctor’s door, and went into the doctor’s house. Immediately 
the air was filled with the scent of trodden grass, and the perspec- 
tive of years opened, and at the end of it was a litlle likeness of 
this man keeping a wicket, and, 1 said, “ God bless my soul! Joe- 
Specks!” 

Through many changes and much work, I had preserved a ten- 
derness for the memory of Joe, forasmuch as we had made the- 
acquaintance of Roderick Random together, and had believed him 
to be no ruffian, but an ingenuous and engaging hero. Scorning 
to ask the boy left in the phaeton whether it was really Joe, and scorn- 
ing even to read the brass plate on the door — so sure was 1— I rang- 
the bell, and informed the servant-maid that a stranger sought audi- 
ence of Mr. Specks, Into a room, half surgery, half study, 1 was 
shown to await his coming, and 1 found it, by a series of elaborate- 
accidents, bestrewn with testimonies to Joe. Portrait of Mr. Sirecks,, 
bust of Mr. Specks, silver cup from grateful patient to Mr. Specks,, 
presentation sermon from local clergyman, dedication poem froim 
local poet, dinner card from local nobleman, tract on balance of 
power from local refugee, inscribed Hommage de Vauteur a/ 
Specks. 

Wlien my old sclioobfellow came in, and 1 informed him with U' 
smile that 1 was not a patient, he seemed rather at a loss to perceive 
any reason for smiling in connection with that fact, and inquired to- 
what he was to attribute the honor? 1 asked him, with another 
smile, could he remember me at all? He had not (he said) that 
pleasure. 1 was beginning to have but a poor opinion of Mr. Specks,, 
when he said, reflectively, ‘‘ And yet there’s a something too.” 
Upon that, I saw a boyish liglit in his eyes that looked well, and T 
asked him if he could inform me, as a stranger who desired to know' 
and had not the means of reference at imnd, what the name of the- 
young lady was who marriea Mr. Random? Upon that, he said 
“Narcissa,” and, after staring for a moment, called me by my 
name, shook me by the hand, and melted into a roar of laughter. 
‘‘ Why, of course, you’ll remember Lucy Green,” he said, after we-, 
had talked a little. ” Of course,” said i. ” Whom do you think, 
she married?” said he. ” You?” 1 hazarded. ” Me,” said Specks, 
” and you shall see her.” So 1 saw her, and she was fat. ami if all 
the hay in the world had been headed upon her, it could scarcely- 
have altered her face more than Time had altered it from my remem- 
brance of the face that ’nud once looked down upon me into the- 
fragrant dungeons of Seringapatam. But when her youngest child' 
came in after dinner (for I dined with them, and we had no othep 
company tlian Specks, Junior, Barrister-at-law, who went away 
as soon as the cloth was removed, to look after the young lady to- 
whom he was going to be married next week); 1 saw again, in that 
litlle daughter, the little face of the haj'^-fielci, unchanged, and it 
quite touched my foolish heart. We talked immensely. Specks and 
Mrs. Specks, and T, and we spoke of our old selves as though our 
old selves were dead and gone, and indeed, indeed they wcie — dead. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 89 

■and gone as the playfhg-field that had become a wilderness of rusty 
iron, and the property of S. E. H. 

Specks, however, illuminated Dullborough with the rays of in- 
terest that 1 wanted, and should otherwise have missed in it, and 
•linked its present to its past with a highly agreeable chain. And 
in Specks’s society I had new occasion to observe what t had before 
noticed in similar communications among other men. All the 
school fellows and others of old, whom 1 inquired about, had either 
done superlatively M'ell or superlatively ill — had either become un- 
<;eitificated bankrupts, or been felonious, and got themselves trans- 
ported; or had made great hits in life, and done wonders. And this 
is so commonly the casa, that 1 never can imagine what becomes of 
all the mediocre people of people’s youth— especially considering 
that we find no lack of the species in our maturity. But, I did not 
propountl this difficult}'’ to Specks, for no pause in the conversation 
gave me an occasion. Nor could 1 discover one single Have in the 
good doctor — when he reads this, he will receive in a friendly spirit 
the pleasantly-meant record — except that he had forgotten his 
Roderick Random, and that he confounded Strap with Lieutenant 
J3atchway; who never knew Random, howsoever intimate with 
Pickle. 

When I went alone to the Railway to catch my train at night 
.(Specks had meant to go with me, but was inopportunely called out), 
..I was in a more charitable mood with Dullborough than 1 had been 
all day; and yet in my heart I had loved it all day too. Ah! who 
was 1 that 1 should quarrel with the town for being changed to me, 
when 1 myself had come back so changed to it? All my earfy read- 
.ings and earJy imaginations dated from this place, and 1 took them 
away so full of inupcent construction and guileless belief, and I 
-brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser and so 
5tnuch the worse 1 


Xlll. 

NIGHT WALKS. 

Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a dis- 
tressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night 
for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long 
lime to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but, 
it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly 
After lying down, and going out, and coming home tired ai sunrise. 

In the course of those nigiits 1 finished my education in a fair 
amateur experience of Houselessness. My principal object being 
to get through the night, the pursii't of it brought me into sym* 
|)athetic relations with people wlip have no other object every night 
•in Ihe year. 

The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold. 
The sun not rising before half-past five, the night perspective looked 
sufficiently long at half-past twelve; which was about my time for 
confronting it. 

The resUessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles 
find tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first enter- 


90 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER. 


tainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It 
lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship- 
when the late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the 
potmen thrust the last brawling drunkards into the street; but 
stray vehicles and stray people were left us after that. If we were 
very lucky, a policeman’s rattle sprang, and a fray turned up; but, 
in general, surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Ex- 
cept in the Haymarket, which is the worst-kept part of London, and 
about Kent Street in the Borough, and along a portion of the 
Old Kent Road, the peace was seldom violently broken. But, 
it was always the case that London, as if in imitation of individual 
citizens belonging to it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness. 
After all seemed quiet, if one cab rattled by, half-a-dozen would 
surely follow; and Houselessness even observed that intoxicated 
people appeared to be magnetically attracted toward each other; so 
that we knew, when we saw one drunken object staggering against 
the shutters of a shop, that another drunken object would stagger 
up before five minutes were out, to fraternize or fight with it. 
When we made a divergence from the regular species of drunkard, 
the thin-armed, puff-ifaced, leaden lipped gin-drinker, and en- 
countered a rarer specimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one- 
but that specimen was dressed in sdiled mourning. As the street ex- 
perience in the night, GO the street experience in the day; the com- 
mon folk who come unexpectedly into a little property, come unex- 
pectedly into a deal of liquor. 

At length these dickering sparks would die away, worn out — the 
last veritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman 
or hot-potato man — and London would sink to rest. And then the 
yearning of the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, 
any lighted place, and movement, anything suggestive of any one 
being up — nay, even so much as awake, for the houseless eye looked 
out for lights in windows. 

Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would 
walk and walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle 
of streets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen in con- 
versation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men. Now 
and then in the night— but rarely — Houselessness would become 
aware of a furtive head peering out of a doorway a few yards before 
him, and, coming up with the head, would find a man standing bolt 
upright to keep within the doorway’s shadow, and evi-iently intent 
upon no particular service to society. Under a kind of fascination, 
and in a ghostly silence suitable to the time, Houselessness' and this 
gentleman would eye one another from head to foot, and so, with- 
out exchange of speech, part, mutuall.y suspicious. Drip, drip, drip, 
from ledge and coping, splash from pipes and water spouts, and by 
and by the hou.seless shadow would fall upon the stones that pave 
the way to Waterloo Bridge; it being in the houseless mind to have 
a half-pennyworth of excuse for sa5dng “ Good-night” to the toll- 
keeper, and catching a glimpse of his fire. A good fire, and a good 
great-coat and a good woolen neck-shawl, were comfortable things 
to see in conjunction with thedoll-keeper ; also his brisk w'akeful- 
ness was excellent company when he rattled the change of half- 
pence down upon that metal table of his, like a man who defied the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 91 

night, with all its sorrowful thoughts, and didn’t care for the com- 
ing of dawn. There was need of encouragement on the threshold 
of the bridge, for the bridge was dreary. The chopped-up murdered 
man who had not been lowered with a rope over the parapet when 
those nights were; he was alive, and slept then quietly enough most 
likely, and undisturbed by any dream of where he was to come. 
But the river had an awful look, the buildings on the banks were 
muffled in black shrouds, and the reflected lights seemed to origi- 
nate deep in the water, as if the specters of suicides were holding 
them to show where they went down. The wild moon and clouds 
were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed, and the very 
shadow of the immensity of London seemed to lie oppressively upon 
the river. 

Between the bridge and (he two great theaters there was but the 
distance of a few hundred paces, so the theaters came next. Grim 
and black within, at night, those great dry Wells, and lonesome 
to imagine, with the rows of faces faded out, the lights extinguished, 
and the seats all empty. One would think that nothing in them 
knew itself at such a lime but Yorick's skull. In one of my night 
walks as the church steeples were shaking the March winds and 
rain with the strokes of Four, I passed the outer boundary of one 
of these great deserts, and entered it. With a dim lantern in my 
hand, I groped my well-known way to the stage, and looked over 
the orchestra — which was like a great grave dug for a time of pes- 
tilence— into the void beyond. A dismal cavern of an immense 
aspect, with the chandelier gone dead like everything else, and 
nothing visible, through mist and fog and space, but tiers of wind- 
ing sheets. The ground at my feet, where, when last there, I had 
seen the peasantry of Naples dancing among the vines, reckless of 
the burning mountain which threatened to overwhelm them, was 
now in possession of a strong serpent of engine hose, watchfully 
lying in wait for the serpent Fire, and ready to fly at it if it showed 
its forked tongue. A ghost of a watchman, carrying a faint corpse 
candle, haunted the distant upper gallery and flitted away. Retiring 
within the proscenium, and holding my light above my head 
toward the rolled- up curtain— green no more, but black as ebony — 
my sight lost itself in a gloomy vault, showing faint indications in it 
of a shipwreck of canvas and cordage. Methought I felt much as a 
diver might at the bottom of the sea. 

In those small hours when there was no movement in the streets, 
it afforded matter for reflection to take Newgate in the way, and, 
touching its rough stone, to think of the prisoners in their sleep, 
and then to glance in at the lodge over the spiked wicket, and see 
the fire and light of the watching turnkeys on the white wall. Not 
an inappropriate time, either to linger by that wicked little Debtors’ 
Door— shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw— which 
has been Death’s Door to so many. In the days of the uttering of 
forged one-pound notes by people tempted up from the country, 
how many hundreds of wretched creatures of both sexes — many 
quite innocent— swung out of a pitiless and inconsistent world, 
with (he tower of yonder Christian churcli of St. Sepulcher mon- 
strously before their eyes! Is there any haunting of the Bank Par- 
lor, by the remorseful souls of old directors, in the nights of these 


92 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


later 1 wonder, or is it as quiet as this degenerate Aceldama, 
of an Old Bail; y? 

To walk on to the Bank, lamenting the good old times and be^ 
moaning tin* present evil period, would be an easj’^ next step, so i 
would lake it, and would make my houseless circuit of the JBank, 
and give a thought to the treasure within; likewise to the guard of 
soldiers passing the night there, and nodding over the lire. IMext^ 

1 wi nt to Billingsg tte, in some hope of market people, but it prov- 
ing as yet too early, crossed London Bridge, and got down by the 
water side on the Surrey shore, among the buildings of the great 
brewery. There was plenty going on at the brewery; and the reek^ 
and the smell of grains, and the rattling of the plump dray horses at 
their mangers, were capital compau 3 ^ Quite refreshed by kaviug 
mingled vviih this good society, 1 made a new start with a new 
heart, setting the old King’s Bench Prison before me for my next 
object, ami resolving, when 1 should come to the wall, to think of 
poor Horace Kinch, and the Dry Rot in men. 

A very curious disease the Dry Rot in men, and diBScult tO' 
detect tile bt ginning of. It had carried Horace Kinch inside the- 
wall of the old King’s Bench Prison, and it had carried him out 
with ids feet, foremost. He was a likely man to look at, in the- 
prime of life, well to do. as clever as he needed to be, and popular 
among many friends. He was suitably married, and had healihy 
and pretty children. But. like some fair-looking houses or fair- 
looking shins, he took the Dry Rot. The first strong external rev- 
elation of the Dry Rot in men is a tendency to lurk and lounge;, 
to be at street corners without intelligible reason; to be going auy- 
•where when met; to be about many places rather than at any; to do- 
nothing tangible, but to have an intention of performing a variety 
of intimgibie duties to morrow, or the dap after. When this mani- 
festtiiioii of the disease is observed, the observer will usually connect 
it with a vague impression once formed or received, that the patient 
was living a little too hard. He will scarcely haVe had leisure to 
turn it over in his mind, and for.m the terrible suspicion *' Dry 
Rot,” when he will notice a change for the worse in the patient’s 
appearance: a certain sloveliness and deterioration which is not. 
poverty, nor dirt, nor intoxication, nor ill-health, but simply Dry 
Rot To tills succeeds a smell as of strong waters in the morning; 
to that, a looseness respecting money; to that, a stronger smell as 
of strong waters at all times; to that, a looseness respecling ever}' 
thing; to that, a trembling of the limbs, somnolency, misery, and 
crumbling to pieces. As it is in wood, so it is in men. Dry Rot 
advances at a compound usury quite incalculable. A plank is 
found infected with it, and the whole structure is devoted. Thus 
it had been with the quhappy Horace Kinch, lately buri&d by a;, 
small subscription. Those who knew him had not nigh done say- 
ing, ” So well ofl!, so comfortably established, witli such hope be- 
fore him— and yet, it is feared, with a slight touch of Dry Rot!” 
when, lo! the man was all Dry Rot and dust. 

From the dead wall associated on tho^e houseless nights with this- 
too common story 1 chose next to wander by Bethlehem Hospital; 
partly because it lay on my road round lo VVestminster ; partly be- , 
cause I had a night fancy in my head which could be best pursued 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


93 


witliiQ sight of its walls and dome. And the fancy was this: Are 
not the sane and insane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming? 
Are not all of us outside this hospital, who dream, more or less in 
the-condition of those inside it, every night of our lives? Are we- 
not nightly persuaded, as they daily are, that we associate prepos- 
terousl-v^witli kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and nofa- 
hilities of all sorts? Do we not nightly jumble events and person- 
ages, and times and places, as these do daily? Are we not some- 
times tumbled by our own sleeping inconsistencies, and do we not 
vexedly try to account .for them or excuse them, just* as these 
do sometimes in respect of their waking delusions? Said an 
afflicted man to me, when I was last in a hospital like this, “ Sir, 1 
can frequently fly.” I was half ashamed to reflect that so could 1 
— by night. Said a woman to me on the same occasion, ‘‘ Queen Vic- 
toria frequently comes to dine with me, and her Majesty and I dine 
off peaches and macaroni in our night-gowns, and his Itoyal High- 
ness the Prince Consort does us the honor to make a third on horse- 
back in a Field Marshal’s uniform.” Could 1 refrain from redden- 
ing with consciousness when 1 remembered the amazing royal par- 
ties I myself had given (at night), the unaccountable viands I had 
put on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting m 3 "self 
on those distinguished occasions? 1 wmnder that the great Master 
who knew everything, when he called Sleep the death of each 
day’s life, did not call Dreams the insanity of each day’s sanity. 

By this time 1 had left the hospital behind me, and was again 
setting toward the river; and in a sliort breathing space 1 was on 
Westminster Bridge, regaling my houseless eyes with the external 
walls of the British Parliament — the perfection of a stupendous in- 
stitution, I know, and the admiration of all surrounding nations 
and succeeding ages, I do not doubt, but perhaps a little the better, 
now and then, for being pricked up to its work. Turning off inta 
Old Palace Yarti, the Courts of Law kept me company for a quar- 
ter of an hour; hinting in low whispers what numbers of people 
they w'ere keeping awake, and how intensely wwetched and horrible 
they w^ere rendering the small hours to unfortunate suitors. West- 
minster Abbey was fine gloomy society for another quarter of an 
hour; suggesting a wonderful procession of its dead among the 
dark arches and pillars, each century more amazed by the century 
following it tliau by all the centuries long before. And, indeed, 
in those houseless night walks — wdiich even included cemeteries 
where w'atchmen went round among the graves at stated times, and 
moved the tell-tale handle of an index which recorded that they had 
touched it at such an hour— it was a solemn consideration what* 
enormous hosts of dead belong to one old great city, and how, if 
they were raised while the living slept, there would not be the 
space of a j in’s point in all the streets and ways for the living ta 
come oul into. Not only that, but the vast armies of dead would 
overflow tlie hills and valleys beyond the city, and would stretch 
away all round it, God knows how far. 

When a church clock strikes on houseless ears in the dead of the- 
night, it may be at first mistaken for company, and hailed as such. 
But, as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive 
at such a time with great clearness, go opening out, forever and 


94 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


ever afterward widening?, perhaps (as the philosopher has sugp:ested) 
in eternal space, the mistake is rectified, and the sense of loneliness 
is profounder. Once — it was after leaving the Abbey, and turning 
my face north — I came to the great steps of St. Martin’s Church as 
the clock was striking Three. Suddenly a thing that in a moment 
more 1 should have trodden upon without seeing, rose up at my feet 
with a cry of loneliness and houselessness, struck out of it by the 
bell, the like of which 1 never heard. We then stood face to face 
looking at one another, frightened by one another. The creature 
was like a beetle-browed harelipped youth of twenty, and it had a 
loose bundle of rags on, which it held together with one of its 
hands. It shivered from head to foot, and its teeth chattered, and 
as it stared at me — persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it thought 
me — it made with its whining mouth as if it were snapping at 
me, like a worried dog. Intending to give this ugly obiect money. 
1 put out my hand to slay it— for it recoiled as it whined and 
snapped — and laid my hand upon its shoulder. Instantly, it twisted 
out of its garments, like the young man in the New Testament, 
and left me standing alone with its rags in my hand. 

Covent Garden Market, when it was market morning, was won- 
derful company. The great wagons of cabbages, with growers’ 
men and boys lying asleep under them, and with sharp dogs from 
market garden neighborhoods looking after the whole, were as 
good as a party. But one of the worst night sights I know in Lon- 
don is to be found in the children who prowl about this place; who 
sleep in the baskets, fight for the offal, dart at any object they think 
they can lay their thieving hands on, dive under the carts and bar- 
rows, dodge the constables, and are perpetually making a blunt 
pattering on the pavement of the Piazza with the rain of their 
naked feet. A painful and unnatural result comes of the compar- 
ison one is forced to institute between the growth of corruption as 
displayed in the so much improved and cared for fruits of the earth, 
and the growth of corruption as displayed in these all-uncared-for 
(except inasmuch as ever-hunted) savages. 

There was early coffee to be got about Covent-Garden Market, 
and that w^as more company — warm company, too, which was bet- 
ter. Toast of a very substantial quality was likewise procurable; 
though the tousled-headed man who made it, in an inner chamber 
within the coffee-room, hadn’t got his coat on yet, and was so heavy 
with sleep that in every interval of toast and coffee he went off anew 
behind the partition into complicated cross roads of choke and 
snore, and lost his way directly. Into one of these establishments 
(among the earliest) near Bow street there came one morning, as I 
sat over my houseless cup, pondering where to go next, a man in a 
high and long snnff-colorcd coat, and shoes, and, to the best of my 
belief, nothing else but a hat, wdio took out of his hat a large cold 
meat-pudding; a meat-pudding so large that it was a very tight tit, 
and brought the lining of the hat out with it. This mysterious man 
was known by his pudding, for, on his entering, the man of sleep 
brought him a pint of hot tea, a small loaf, and a large knife and 
fork and plate. Left to himself in his box, he stood the pudding 
on the bare table, and, instead of cutting it, stabbed it overhand, 
with the knife, like a mortal enemy; then took the knife out, wiped 


IHE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


95 


it on his sleeve, tore the pudding asunder with his fingers, and ate 
it all up. The remembrance of this man with the pudding remains 
with me as the remembrance of the most spectral person my house- 
lessness encountered. Twice only was I m that establishment, and 
twice I saw him stalk in (as 1 should say, .-just out of bed. and pres- 
ently going back to bed), take out his pudding, stab his pudding, 
•wipe the dagger, and eat his pudding all up. He was a man whose 
figure promised cadaverousness, but who had an excessively red 
face, though shaped like a horse’s. On the second occasion of my 
seeing him, he said huskily to the man of sleep, “ Am I red to- 
night?” ‘‘You are,” he uncompromisingly answered. ‘‘My 
mother,” said the specter, ‘‘ was a red-faced woman that liked 
drink, and 1 looked at her hard when she laid in her coffin, and I 
took the complexion.” Somehow, the pudding seemed an un- 
wholesome pudding after that, and I put myself in its way no more. 

When there was no market, or when 1 wanted variety, a railway 
terminus, -with the morning mails coming in, was remunerative 
company. But, like most of the company to be had in this world, 
it lasted only a very short time. The station lamps would burst out 
ablaze, the porters would emerge from places of concealment, the 
cabs and trucks would rattle to their places (the Post-Office carts 
were already in theirs), and finally, the bell would strike up, and 
the train would come banging in. But there were few passengers 
and little luggage, and everything scuttled a-w’ay with the' greatest 
expedition. The locomotive post-offices, with their great nets— as 
if they had been dragging the country for bodies — wouldtiyopen 
as to their doors, and would disgorge a smell of lamp, an exhausted 
clerk, a guard in a red coat, and their bags of letters; the engine 
would blow and heave and perspire, like an engine wiping its fore 
head, and saying what a run it had had; and within ten minutes the 
lamps were out, and I was houseless and alone again. 

But now there were driven cattle on the highroad near, wanting 
(alB catlle always do) to^ turn into the midst of stone walls, and 
squeeze themselves through six inches’ width of iron railing, and 
getting their heads down (also as cattle always do) for tossing-pur- 
chase at quite imaginary dogs, and giving themselves and every de- 
voted creature associated with them a most extraordinary amount 
of unnecessary trouble. Now, too, the conscious gas began to grow 
pale with the knowledge that daylight was coming, and straggling 
work-people were already in the streets, and, as waking life had 
become extinguished with the last pieman’s sparks, so it began to 
he rekindled with the fires of the first street-corner breakfast-sellers. 
And so by faster and faster degrees, until the last degrees were very 
fast, the day came, and 1 was tired and could sleep. And it is not, 
as I used to think, going home at such times, the least wonderful 
thing in London, that, in the real desert region of the night, the 
liouseless wanderer is alone there. I knew well enough where to 
find Vice and Misfortune of all kinds, it I had chosen ; but they 
were put out of sight, and my houselessness had many miles upon 
miles of streets in which it could, and did, have its own solitary 
way. 


THE XJHCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


XIV. 

CHAMBERS. 

Havestg occasion to transact some business with a solicitor who 
occupies a highly suicidal set of chambers in Gray’s Inn, I after- 
ward took a turn in the large square of that stronghold of Melan- 
choly, reviewing, with congenial surroundings, experiences of 
Chambers, 

I began, as was natural, with the chambers 1 had just left. They 
were an uppr set on a rotten staircase, with a mysterious bunk or 
bulkhead on the landing outside, them, of a rather nautical and 
Screw-Collier-like appearance than otherwise, and painted an in- 
tense black. Many dusty years have passed since the appropriation 
of this Davy Jones’s locker to any purpose, and, during the whole 
period within the memory of living man, it has been hasped and 
padlocked. I cannot quite satisfy my mind whether it was origi- 
nally meant for the reception of coals, or bodies, or as a place of 
temporary security for the plunder “ looted ” by laundresses; but I 
incline to the last opinion. It is about breast high, and usually 
serves-'as a bulk for defendants in reduced circumstances to lean 
against and ponder at, when they come on the hopeful errand of 
trying to make sin arrangement without money— under which aus- 
picious circumstance it mostly happens that the legal gentleman 
they want to see is much engaged, and they pervade the staircase 
for a considerable period. Against this opposing bulk, in the ab- 
surdest manner, the tomb-like outer-door of the solicitor’s cham- 
bers (which is also of an intense black) stands in dark ambusli, half 
open, and half shut, ail day. The solicitor’s apartments are three 
in number; consisting of a slice, a cell, fnd a wedge. The slice is 
assigned to the two clerks, the cell is occupied by tiie principal, and 
the wedge is devoted to stray papers, old game baskets from the 
.country, a washing-stand, and a model of a patent Ship’s Caboose, 
which was exlnbited in Chancery at the commencement of the pres- 
ent century, on an application for an injunction to restrain infringe- 
ment, At about halLpast nine on every week-day morning, the 
younger of the two clerks (who, I have reason to believe, leads the 
fashion at Penlonville in the articles of pipes and shirts) may be 
found knocking the dust out of his official door-key on the bunk or 
locker before mentioned; and so exceedingly subject to dust is his 
key, and so very retentive of that superfluity, that in exceptional 
summer weather, wdien a ray of sun-light has fallen on the locker 
in m}’’ presence, I have noticed its inexpressive countenance to be 
deeply marked by a kind of Bramah erysipelas or small-pbx. 

This set of chambers (as I have gradually discovered, when I have 
I\ad restless occasion to make inquiries or leave messages after office 
hours) is under the charge of a lady named Sweeney, in figure ex- 
tremely like an old family umbrella; whose dwelling coiifrunts a 
dead wall in a court off Gray’s Inn Lane, and who is usually fetched 
Into the passage of that bower, when wanted, from some neighbor- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


97 


inghome of industry, which has the curious property of imparting 
an inflammatory appearance to her visage. Mrs. Sweeney is one of 
the race of professed laundresses, and is the compiler of a remark- 
able manuscript volume entitled “Mrs. Sweeney’s Book,” from 
which much curious statistical information may be gathered re- 
specting the high prices and small uses of soda, soap, sand, fire- 
wood, and other such articles. 1 have created a legend in my mind 
— and consequently 1 believe it with the utmost pertinacity— that 
the late Mr. Sweeney -was a ticket porter under the Honorable Soci- 
ety of Gray’s Inn, and that, in consideration of his long and valu- 
able services, Mrs. Sweeney was appointed to her present post. 
For, though devoid of personal charms, I have observed this lady to 
exercise a fascination over the elderly ticket porter mind (particu- 
larly under the gateway, and in corners and entries), which 1 can 
only refer to her being one of the fraternity, yet not competing with 
it. All that need be said concerning tliis set of chambers is said, 
when I have added that it is in a large double house in Gray’s lun 
Square, very much out of repair, and that the outer portal is orna- 
mented in a hideous manner with certain stone remains, which have 
the appearance of the dismembered bust, torso, and limbs of a pet- 
rified bencher. 

Indeed, 1 look upon Gray’s Inn generally as one of the most de- 
pressing institutions in brick and mortar known to the children of 
men. Can anything be more dreamy than its arid Square, Sahara 
Desert of the law, with the ugly old tile-topped tenements, the dirty 
windows, the bills To Let, To Let, the door-posts inscribed like 
gravestones, the crazy gateway giving upon the filthy Lane, the 
scowling iron-barred prison-like passage into Verulam Buildings, 
the moldy, red-nosed ticket porters with little coffin plates, and why 
with aprons, the dry, hard atomy-like appearance of the whole dust- 
heap? When my uncommercial travels tend to this dismal spot, 
my comfort is its'rickety state. Imagination gloats over the fullness 
of time when the staircases shall have quite tumbled down— they 
are daily wearing into an ill-savored powder, but have not quite 
tumbled down yet — when the last old prolix bencher, all of the 
olden time, shall have been got out of an upper window by means 
of a Fire Ladder, and carried off to the Holborn Union; when the 
last clerk shall have engrossed the last parchment behind the last 
splash on the last of the mud-stained windows, which, all through 
the miry year, are pilloried out of recognition in Gray’s Inn Lane. 
Then shall a squalid little trench with rank grass, and a pump in 
it, lying between the coffee-house and South Square, be wholly 
given up to cats and rats, and not, as now, have its empire divided 
between those animals and a few briefless bipeds— surely called to 
the Bar by voices of deceiving spirits, seeing that they are wanted 
there by no mortal — who glance down, with eyes better glazed than 
their casements', from their dreamy and lack luster rooms. Then 
shall the way Nor’-Westward, now lying under a short grim colon- 
nade, where in summer-time pounce flies from law-stationering 
windows into the eyes of laymen, be clioked with rubbish, and 
happily become impassable. Then shall the gardens where turf, 
trees, and gravel vrcar a legal livery of Mack, run rank, and pil- 
grims go to Gorhajnbury to' see Bacon’s effigy as .lie sat, and not 
4 


98 


THE UHCOHMERCTAL TRAVELER. 


come here (which in truth they seldom do) to see where he walked. 
Then, in a word, shall the old-established vender of periodicals sit 
alone in his little crib of a shop behind the Holborn Gate, like that 
lumbering Marius among the ruins of Carthage, who has sat heavy 
on a thousand million of similes. 

At one period of my uncommercial career I much frequented 
another set of chambers in Gray’s Inn Square. They were what is 
familiarly called “ a top set,” and all the eatables and drinkables 
introduced into them acquired a flavor of Cock-loft. I have known 
an unopened Strasbourg’ pate, fresh from Fortuum & Mason’s, to 
draw in this cockloft tone through its crockery dish, and become 
penetrated with cock-loft to the core of its inmost truffle in three 
quarters of an hour. This, however, was not the most curious feat- 
ure of those chambers; that consisted in the profound conviction 
entertained by my esteemed friend Park le (their tenant) that the}’^ 
were clean. Whether it was an inborn hallucination, or whether it 
was imparted to him by Mrs. Miggot the laundress, I never could 
ascertain. But, 1 believe he woulcXhave gone to the stake upon the 
question. Now, they were so dirty that I could take off the dis- 
tinctest impression of my figure on any article of furniture by 
merely lounging upon it for a few moments; and it used to be "a 
private amusement of mine to print myself off — if I may use the 
expression— all over the rooms. It was the first large circulation 1 
had. At other times 1 have accidentally shaken a window curtain 
while in animated conversation with Parkle, and struggling insects 
which were certainly red, and were certainly not ladybirds, ha^^e 
dropped on the back of my hand. Yet Parkle lived in that top set 
years, bound body and soul to the superstition that they were clean, 
lie used to say, when congratulated upon them, “ Well, they are 
not like chambers in one respect, you know; they are clean.” 
Concurrently, he had an idea which he could never explain, that 
]\lrs. Miggot was in some way connected with the Church. When 
he was in particularly good spirits, he used to believe that adeceasetl 
uncle of hers had been a Dean ; when he vras poorly and low, he 
believed that her brother had been a Curate. I and Mrs. Miggot 
(she was a genteel woman) were on confidential terms, but 1 never 
knew her to commit herself to any distinct assertion on the subject; 
she merely claimed a proprietorship in the Church, by looking, 
when it was mentioned, as if the reference awakened the slumber- 
ing Past, and were personal. It may have been his amiable conli- 
deuce in Mrs. Miggot ’s better days that inspired my friend with his 
delusion respecting the chambers, but he never wavered in his 
fidelity to it for a moment, though he wallowed in dirt seven years. 

Two of the windows of these chambers looked down into the 
garden; and we have sat up there together many a summer evening, 
saying how pleasant it was, and talking of many things. To niy 
intimacy with that top set, I am indebted for three of my liveliest 
personal impressions of the loneliness of life in chambers. They 
shall follow here in order; first, second, and third. 

First. My Giay’s Inn friend, on a time, hurt one of his legs, auvl 
it became seriously inflamed. Not knowing of his indisposition, 1 
was on my way to visit him as usual, one summer evening, when I 
was much surprised by meeting a lively leech in Field Court, Gray’s 


99 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

Inn, seemingly on his way to the West-end of London. As the 
leech was alone and was, of conise, unable to explain his ]>osition, 
even if he had been inclined to do so (which he had not the appear- 
ance of being), I passed him and went on. Turning the corner of 
Gray’s Inn Square, I was beyond expression amazed by meeting 
another leech — also entirely alone, and also proceeding in a west- 
erly direction, though with less decision of purpose. Ruminating 
on this extraordinary circumstance, and enrieavoring to remember 
•W’hether I had ever read, in the “ Philosophical Transactions ” or 
any work on Natural History, of a migration of Leeclies, 1 ascended 
to the top set, past the dreary series of closed outer doors of offices, 
and an empty set or two which intervened between that lofty region 
and the surface. Entering my friend’s rooms, I found him stretched 
upon his back, like Prometheus Bound, with a perfectly demented 
ticket porter in attendance on him instead of the Vulture: wliich 
helpless individual, who was feeble and frightened, and had (my 
friend explained to me, in great choler) been endeavoring for some 
hours to apply leeches to his leg, and as yet had only cot on two 
out of twenty. To this Unfortunate’s distraction between a damp 
cloth on which he had placed the leeches to freshen them, and the 
wrathful adjurations of my friend to “ Stick ’em on, sir!” 1 re- 
ferred 1 he phenomenon I had encountered: the rather as two fine 
specimens were at that moment going out at the door, while a gen- 
eral insurrection of the rest was in progress on the table. After 
awhile our united efforts prevailed, and, wiien the leeches came off 
and had recovered their spirits, we carefully lied them up in a 
decanter. But I never heard more of them than that they were all 
gone next morning, and that the out-of-door young man of Bickle, 
Bush & Bodger, on the ground- floor, had been bitten and bloofled 
by some creature not identified. They never ” took ” on Mrs. Mig- 
got, the laundress; but, I have always preserved fresh the belief 
that she unconsciously carried several about her, until they gradu- 
ally found openings in life. 

Second. On the same staircase with my friend Parkle, and on 
the same floor, there lived a man of law, who pursued his business 
elsewhere, and used those chambers as his place of residence. For 
three or four years,- Parkle rather knew of him than knew him, but 
after that — for Englishmen— short pause of consideration, they 
began to speak. Parkle exchanged words with him in his private 
character onl}^ and knew nothing of his business ways, or means. 
He was a man a good deal about town, but always alone. We used 
to remark to one another that, although we often encountered him 
in theaters, concert- rooms, and similar public places, he was always 
alone. Yet he was not a gloomy man, and was of a decidedly con- 
versational turn, insomuch that he would sometimes of an evening 
lounge with a cigar in his mouth, half in and half out of Parkle’s 
rooms, and discuss the topics of the day by the hour. He used to 
hint, on these occasions, that he had four faults to find with life; 
firstly, that it obliged a man to be always winding up his watch; 
secondly, that London was too small; thirdly, that it therefore 
wanted variety; fourthly, that there was too much dust in it. There 
was so much dust in hi:- own faded chambers, certainly, that they 
reminded me of a sepulcher, furnished in prophetic anticipation of 


100 


THE UiTCOMMERCTAL TRAVELER. 


the present tirwj, which had newly been brouglit to light, after hav- 
ing remained buried a few thousand years. One dry hot autumn 
everiing at twilight, this man, being then five years turned of fifty, 
looked in upon Parkle in his usual lounging way, with his cigar in 
his mouth as usual, and said, “ 1 am going out of town.’' As he 
never went out ot town, Parkle said, “Oh, indeed! At last?’’ 
“ Yes,” says he, “ at last. For what is a man to do? London is 
so small! If you go “West, you come to Hounslow. If you go 
East, you come to Bow. It you go South, there’s Brixton or ISor- 
wood. It you go North, you can’t get rid of Barnet. Then, the 
monotony of all the streets, streets, streets — and of all the roads, 
roads, roads— and the dust, dust dust!” When he had said this, he 
wished Parkle a good evening, but Ci.me back again, and said, with 
his watch in his hand, “ Oh I really cannot go on winding up this 
watch over and over again; I wish you would take care of it.” 
So, Parkle laughed and consented, and the man went out of town. 
The man remained out of town so long, that his letter-box became 
choked, and no more letters could be got into it, and they began to 
be left at the lodge and to accumulate there. At last the head por- 
ttr decided, on conference with the steward, to use his master-key, 
and look into the chambers, and give them the benefit of a whilf of 
air. Then it w^as found that he had hanged himself to his bedstead, 
and left this written memorandum: “ I should prefer to.be cut down 
by my neighbor and friend (if he will allow me to call him so), II. 
Parkle, Esq.” This was an end of Parkle’s occupancy of chambers. 
He went into lodgings immediately. 

Third. While Parkle lived in Gray’s Inn, and I myself was un- 
commercially preparing for the Bar— which is done, as everybody 
knows, by having a frayed old gown put on in a pantry by an old 
woman in a chronic state of St. Anthony’s fire and dropsy, and, so 
decorated, bolting a bad dinner in a party of four, whereof each in- 
dividual mistrusts the other three— I say, while these things were, 
there was a certain elderly gentleman who lived in a court of the 
Temple, and was a great judge and lover of port wine. Every day 
he dined at his club, and drank his bottle or two of port wine, and 
every night came home to the Temple, and went to bed in his lonely 
chambers. This had gone on many years without variation, when 
one night he had a fit on coming home, and fell, and cut Irs head 
deep, but partly recovered, and groped about in the dark to find the 
door. When he was afterward discovered, dead, it was cleaily 
established by the marks of his hands about the room that he must 
have done so. Now, this chanced on the night of Christmas Eve, 
and over him lived a young fellow who nad sisters and young coun- 
try friends, and who gave them a little party that night, in the 
course of which they played at Blind-man’s Buff. They played 
that game, for their greater sport, by the light of the fire only; and 
once, when they were all quietly rustling and stealing about, and 
the blind man was trying to pick out the pretlist sister (for which I 
am far from blaming him), somebody cried. Hark! The man below 
m\ist be playing Blind man’s Buff by himself to night! They 
listened, and they heard sounds of some one falling about anil 
stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed at the conceit, and 
went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry than ever. 


THE U^rCOMMERCr^T. TRAVELER. 101 

Thiij;, those two so different games of life and death were played 
out together, blindfolded, in the twosets of chambers. 

Such are the occurrences, which, coming to my knowledge, im- 
bued me long ago with a strong seuseoftheloneliuess of chambers. 
There was a fantastic illustration to much the same purpose, im- 
plicitly believed by a strange sort of man now dead, whom 1 knew 
when 1 had not quite arrived at legal years of discretion, though I 
was already in the uncommercial line. 

This was a man who, though not more than thirty, had seen the 
world in divers irreconcilable capacities— had been an oflicer in a 
South American regiment among other odd things— but had not 
achieved much in any way of life, and was in debt, and in hiding. 
He occupied chambers of the dreariest nature in Lyons Inn; his 
name, however, was not upon the door, ordoor-post, but in lieu of it 
stood the name of a friend who had died in the chambers, and had 
given him the furniture. The story aroseout of the furniture, and 
was to this effect; Let the former holder of the chambers, whose 
name was still upon the door and door-post, be Mr. Testatorr 

Mr. Testator look a set of chambers in Lyons Inn when he had 
but very scanty furniture for his bedroom, and uone for his sitting- 
room. He had lived some wintry monthsinihiscondition, and had 
found it very bare and cold. One night, past midnight, when he 
sat writing, and still had writing to do that must be done before he 
•went to bed, he found himself out of coals. He had coals down- 
stairs, but had never been to his cellar; however, the cellar key was 
on his mantel-shelf, and, if he went down and opened the cellar it 
fitted, he might fairly assume the coals in the cellar to be his. As 
to his laundress, she lived among the coal-wagons and Thames 
watermen — for there w^ere Thames watermen at that time— in some 
unhnown rat-hole by the river, down lanes and alleys on the other 
side of the Strand, Ae to any other person to meet him or obstruct 
liim, Lyons Inn was dreaming, drunk, maudlin, moody, betting, 
brooding over bill discounting or renewing— asleep or awake, mind- 
ing its own affairs. Mr. Testator took his coal-scuttle in one hand, 
his candle and key in the other, and descended to the dismalest un- 
derground dens ot Lyons Inn, where the late vehicles in the streets 
became thunderous, and all the w'ater-pipes in the neighborhood 
seemed to have Macbeth’s Amen sticking in their throats, and to be 
trying to get it out. After groping here and there among low doors 
to no purpose, Mr. Testator at length came to a door with a rusty 
padlock which his key fitted. Getting the door open with much 
trouble, and looking in, he found, no coals, buta confused jjile of 
furniture. Alarmed by this iutrusiononauotherman’s property, he 
locked the door again, found his ovu cellar, filled his scuttle, and 
returned np-stairs. 

But the furniture he had seen ran on casters across and across 
Mr. Testator’s mind incessantly, wlrn,in the chill hour of five in 
the morning, he got to bed. He particularly wanted a table to write 
at, and a table expressly made to be writtenathad been ! he piece of 
furniture in the foreground of the heap. AVhen his laundress 
emerged from her burrow in the morniugtomake his kettle boil, he 
artfully led up to the subject of cellars and furniture; but the two 
ideas had evidently no connection inhermiud. Whenslie left him, 


102 


THE UKCOMMEIICIAL TEAVELER. 


and he sat at his breakfast, thinking about the furniture, he recalled 
the rusty stale of the padlock, and inferred that the furniture must 
have been stored in the cellars for a long time — was perhaps forgot- 
ten — owner dead, perhaps? After thinking it over a few days, in 
the course of which he could pump nothing out of Lyons Inn about 
the furniture, he became desperate, and resolved to borrow that 
table. He did so that night. He had not had the table long, when 
he determined to borrow an easy-chair; he had not had that long, 
when he made up his mind to borrow a book-case; then, a couch; 
then, a carpet and rug. By that time, he felt he was “ in furniture 
stepped in so far,” as that it could be no worse to borrow it all. 
Consequently, he borrowed it all, and locked up the cellar for 
good. He had always lacked it after every visit. He had carried 
up every separate article in the dead of the night, and, at the best, 
had felt as wicked as a Resurrection Man. Every article was blue 
and furry when brought into his room, and he had had, in a mur- 
derous and guilty sort of way, to polish it up while London slept. 

Mr. Testator lived in his furnished chambers two or three years, 
or more, and gradually lulled himself into the opinion that the fur- 
niture was his own. This was his convenient state of mind when, 
late one night, a step came up the stairs, and a hand passed over his 
door, feeling for his knocker, and then one deep and solemn rap was 
rapped*, that might have been a spring in Mr. Testator's easy-chair 
to shoot him out of it; so promptly was it attended witli that effect. 

With a candle in his hand, Mr. Testator went to the door, and 
found there a very pale and very tall man; a man who stooped; a 
man with very high shoulders; a very narrow chest, and a very red 
nose; a shabby-genteel man. He was wrapped in a long threadbare 
black coat, fastened up the front with more pins than buttons, and 
under his arm he squeezed an umbrella without a handle, as if he 
were playing bagpipes. He said, “ I ask your pardon, but can you 

tell me ” and stopped; his eyes resting on some object within 

the chambers. 

“ Can 1 tell you what?” asked Mr. Testator, noting his stoppage 
with quick alarm. 

“lasEyour pardon,” said the stranger, “but — this is not the 
inquiry 1 was going to make — do 1 see in there any small article of 
property belonging to mef” 

Mr. Testator was beginning to stammer that he was not aware— 
when the visitor slipped past him into the chambers. There, in a 
goblin way which froze Mr. Testator to the marrow, he examined, 
first, the writing-table, and said, “ Mine;” then, the easy-chair, and 
said, “Mine;” then the book-case, andsaitl, “Mine;” then, turned 
up a corner of the carpet, and said, “ Mine!” in a word, inspected 
every item of furniture from the cellar in succession, and said, 
“ Mine!” Toward the end of this investigation, Mr. Testator per- 
ceived that he was sodden with liquor, and that the liquor was gin. 
He was not unsteady with gin, either in his speech or carriage; but 
he was stiff with gin in both particulars. 

Mr. Testator was in a dreadful state, for (according to his making 
out of the story) the possible consequence of what he had done in 
recklessness and hardihood flashed nponhim in their fullness for the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 103 

first lime. When they had stood gazing at one another for a little 
while, he tremulously began; 

“ Sir, I am conscious that the fullest explanation, compensation, 
and restitution arc your due. They shall be yours. Allow me to 
entreat that, without temper, without even natural irritation on 
your part, we may have a little ” 

“ Drop of something to drink,” interposed the stranger. ” 1 am 
agreeable,” . 

JMr. Testator had intended to say, ‘‘ a little quiet conversation,” 
but with great relief of mind adopted the amendment. He produced 
a decanter of gin, and was bustling about for hot water and sugar, 
wlu'ii he fouml that his visitor had already drunk half the decanter’s 
contents. With liot water and sugar the visitor drank the re- 
mainder before he had been an hour in the chambers by the chimes 
of the church of St. Mary in the Strand; and during the process he 
fie<{uently whispered to himself, ‘‘ Mine!” 

Tiie gin gone, and Mr. Testator wondering what was to follow it, 
the visitor rose and said, with increased stiffness, ” At what hour of 
the morning, sir, will it be convenient?” Mr. Testator hazarded, 
“ At ten?” ” Sir,” said the visitor, “ at ten, to the moment, 1 shall 
be here.” He then contemplated Mr. Testator somewhat at leisure, 
and said, “God bless you! How is your wife?” Mr. Testator 
(who never had a wife) replied, with much feeling, “ Deeply 
anxious, poor soul, but otherwise well.” The visitor thereupon 
turned and went away, and fell twice in going down-stairs. From 
that hour he was never heard of. Whether he was a ghost, or a spec- 
tral illusion of conscience, or a drunken man who had no business 
there, or the drunken rightful owner of the furniture, with a transi- 
tory gleam of memory; whether he got safe home, or had no home 
to get to; whether he died of liquor on the way, or lived in liquor 
ever afterward ; he never was heard of more. This was the story, 
received with llie furniture, and held to be as substantial, by its sec- 
ond possessor in an upper set of chambers in grim Lyons Inn. 

It is to be remarked of chambers in general, ihat they must 
have been built for chambers, to have the right kind of loneli- 
ness. You may make a great dwelling-house very lonely by isolat- 
ing suites of rooms, and. calling them chambers, but you cannot 
make the true kind of loneliness. In dwelling-houses there have 
been family festivals; children have grown in them, girls have 
bloomed into women in them, courtships and marriages have taken 
place in them. True chambers never w'ere young, childish, maid- 
enly; never had dolls in them, or rocking-horses, or christenings, or 
betrothals, or little coffins. Let Gray’s Inn identify the child who 
first touched hands and hearts with Robinson Crusoe in any one of 
its many “ sets,” and that child’s little statue, in white marble with 
a golden inscription, shall be at its service, at my cost and charge, 
as a drinking fountain for the spirit to freshen its thirsty square. 
Let Lincoln’s produce, from all its houses, a twentieth of the pro- 
cession derivable from any dwelling-house one-twentieth of its age, 
of fair young brides who married for love and hope, not settlements, 
and all the Vice-Chancellors shall thenceforward be kept in nosegays 
for nothing, on application to the writer hereof. It is not denied 
that on the terrace of the Adelphi, or in any of the streets of that 


104 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


subtcrranean-stable-haunted spot, or about Bedford Row, or James 
Street of tliat ilk (a gruesome place), or anywheie among the neigh- 
borhoods that liave done flowering and have run to seed, you may 
find chambers replete with the accommodations of Solitude, Close- 
nes3, and Darkness, where you may oe as low-spirited as in the 
genuine article, and might be as easily murdered, with the placid 
reputation of having merely gone down to the seaside. But, the 
many waters of life did run musical in those dry channels once — 
among the Inns, never. The only popular legend known in rela- 
tion to any one of the dull family of Inns is a dark Old Bailey whis- 
per concerning Clement’s, and importing how the black creature 
who holds the sun-dial there was a negro who slew his master, and 
built the dismal pile out of the contents of hisstronir-box — tor which 
architectural offense alone he ought to have been condemned to live 
in it. But, what populace would waste fancy upon such a place, or 
on New Inn, Staple Inn, Barnard’s Inn, or any of the shabby crew? 

The genuine laundress, too, is an institution not to be had in its 
entirety out of and away from the genuine chambers. Again, it is 
not denied that you may be robbed elsewhere. Elsewhere you may 
have — for money — dishonesty, drunkenness, dirt, laziness, and pro- 
found incapacity. But the veritable shining red-faced shameless 
laundress; the true Mrs. Sweeny — in figure, color, texture, and 
smell like the old damp family umbrella; the tip top complicated 
abomination of stockings, spirits, bonnets, limpness, looseness, and 
larceny; is only to be drawn at the fountain-head. Mrs. Sweeny is 
beyond the reach of individual art. It requires the united efforts 
of several men to insure that trreat result, and it is only developed 
in perfection under an Honorable Society and in an Inn of Court. 

XV. 

nurses’ stories. 

There are not many places that 1 find it more agreeable to revisit, 
when 1 am in an idle mood, than some places to which I have never 
been. For, my acquaintance with those spots is of such longstand- 
ing, and has ripened into an intimacy of so affectionate a nature, 
that I take a particular interest in assuring myself that they are un- 
changed. 

1 never was in Robinson Crusoe’s Island, yet 1 frequently return 
there. The colony he established on it soon faded away, and it is 
uninhabited by any descendants of the grave and courteous Span- 
iards, or of Will Atkins and the other mutineers, and has relapsed 
into its original condition. Not a twig of its wicker house remains, 
its goats have long run wild again, its screaming parrots would 
darken the sun with a cloud of many flaming colors it a gun were 
fired there, no face is ever reflected in the waters of the little creek 
which Friday swam across when pursued by his two brother canni- 
bals with sharpened stomachs. After comparing notes with other 
travelers who have similarly revisited the Island, and conscientiously 
inspected it, I have satisfied myself that it contains no vestige of 
Mr. Atkin’s domesticity or theology, though his track on the 
memorable e\eniug of his landing to set his captain ashore, when he 


THE UisCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 105 

was decoyed about and round about until it was dark, and his boat 
was stove, and bis stren,i;lb and spirits failed him, is yet plainly to 
be traced. So is the hi 11- top on which Robinson was struck dumb 
with joy when the reinstated captain, pointed to the ship, riding 
within half a mile of the shore, that was to bear him away, in the 
nine-and-twentietli year of his seclusion in that lonely place. So is 
the sandy beach on which the memorable footstep was impressed, 
and where the savages hauled up their canoes when they came 
ashore for those dreadful public dinners, which led to a dancing 
worse than speech-making. So is the cave where the flaring eyes 
of the old goat made such a goblin appearance in tPe dark. So is 
Ihe site of the hut wdiere Robinson lived with the dog and the parrot 
and the cat, and where he endured those first agonies of solitude, 
which — strange to say — never involved any ghostly fancies; a cir- 
cumstance so very remarkable, that perhaps he left out something 
in writing his record? Round hundreds of such objects, hidden in 
the dense and tropical foliage, the tropical sea breaks evermore; 
and over them the tropical sky, saving in the short rainy season, 
shines bright and cloudless. 

Neither was 1 ever belated among wolves on the borders of France 
and Spain; nor did I ever, when night was closing in and the 
ground was covered with snow, draw up my little company among 
some felled trees which served as a breast- work, and there fire a 
train of gunpowder so dextrously that suddenly we had three or four 
score blazing wolves illuininating the darkness around us. Never- 
theless, I occasionally go back to that dismal region, and perform 
the feat again; when, indeed, to smell the singeing and the frying 
of the wolves afire, and to see them setting one another alight as 
they rush and tumble, and to behold them rolling in the snow 
vainly attempting to put themselves out, and to hear their bowlings 
taken up by all the echoes as well as by all the unseen wolves with- 
in the woods, makes me tremble. 

I was never in the robbers’ cave where Gil Bias lived, but I often 
go back there, and find the trap-door just as heavy to raise as it 
used to be, while that wicked old disabled Black lies everlastingly 
cursing in bed. I was never in Don Quixote’s study, where he 
read his books of chivalry until he rose and hacked at imaginary 
giants, and tijen refreshed himself with great draughts of whaler, yet 
you couldn’t move a book in it wiihout my knowledge, or with my 
consent. I was never (thank Heaven!) in company with the little 
old woman who hobbled out of the chest, and told the merchant 
Abudah to go in search of the Talisman of Oromaues, yet I 
make it ray business to know that she is well preserved, and as 
intolerable as ever. I was never at the school where the boy 
Horatio Nelson got out of bed to steal the pears; not because 
he wanted any, but because every other boy was afraid: yet I have 
several times been back to this Ac iderny, to see him let down out 
of the window with a sheet. ISo with Damascus, and Bagdad, and 
Brobdingnag (which has the curious fate of being usually misspelt 
wdieii written), and Lilliput, and Laputa, and the Nile, and Abys-- 
sinia, and tlie Gauges, and the North Pole, and many hundreds of 
places— I was never at them, yet it is an affair of my life to keep 
them intact, and lam always going back to them. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


106 

But, when 1 was in Dullborough one day, revisiting the associa- 
tions of my childhood, as recorded in previous pages of these notes, 
my experience in this wise was made quite inconsiderable aud of no 
account, by the quantity of places and people — utterly impossible 
places and people, but none the less alarmingly real — that I found I 
had been introduced to by my nurse before I was six years old, aud 
used to be forced to go back to at night without at all wanting to 
go. If we all knew our own minds (in a more enlarged sense than 
the popular acceptation of that phrase), 1 suspect we should find 
our nurses responsible for most of the dark corners we are forced 
to go back to against our wills. 

The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peace- 
ful youth (as I called to mind that day at Dullborough) was a certain 
Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an offshoot of the 
Blue-beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in 
those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no 
general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best 
society, and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer’s mission 
was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with 
tender brides. On his marriage morning, he always caused both 
sides of the way to church to be planted with curious fiowers; and 
when his bride said, “ Dear Captain Murderer, 1 never saw flowers 
like these before: what are they called?” he answered, ” They are 
called Garnish for house-lamb,” and laughed at his ferocious prac- 
tical joke in a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the noble 
bridal company, with a very sharp show of teeth, then displayed for 
the first time. He made love" in a coach and six, and married in a coach 
and twelve, and all his horses were milk-white horses with one red 
spot on the back, which he caused to be hidden by the harness. 
For, the spot would come there, though every horse was milk-white 
when Captain Murderer bought him. And the spot was young 
bride’s blood. (To this terrific point 1 am indebted for my’’ first 
personal experience of a shudder and cold beads on the forehead.) 
When Captain Murderer had made an end of feasting and revelry, 
and had dismissed the noble guests, and was alone with his wife on 
the day month after their marriage, it was his whimsical custom to 
produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver fiie- board. Now, there 
was this special feature in the Captain’s courtships, that he always 
asked if the young lady could make pie-crust; ami, if she couldn’t 
by nature or education, she was taught. Well! When the bride 
saw Captain Murderer produce the golden rolling-pin and silver pie- 
board, she remembered this, and turned up her laced-silk sleeves to 
make a pie. The (Captain brought out a silver pie-dish of immense 
capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter and eggs and 
all things needful, except the inside of the pie; of materials tor the 
staple of the pie itself, the Captain brought out none. Then said 
the lovely bride, ” Dear Captain Murderer, what pie is this to be?” 
He replied, ‘‘A meat-pie.” Then said the lovely bride, “Dear 
(’aptain Murderer, 1 see no meat.” The Captain humorously re- 
torted, “ Look in the glass.” She looked in the glass, but still she 
saw no meat, and then the Captain roared with laughter, and, sud- 
denly frowning and drawing his sword, bade her roll out the crust. 
So .she rolled out the crust, dropping large tears upon it all the time 


THE UXCOMMERCTAL TRAVELER. 


107 

because he was so cross, and when she had lined the dish with 
crust, and had cut the crust all ready to tit the top, the Cai>tain 
called out, “ 1 see the meat in the trlass!” And the bride looked up 
at the ^;las8, just in time to see the Captain cutting her head off; and 
he chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put 
her iu the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, and picked 
the bones. 

Captain Murderer went on this way, prospering exceedingly, 
until he came to choose a bride from two twin sisters, and at first 
didn’t know which to choose. For, though one was fair, and the 
other dark, they were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin 
loved him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the fair one. 
The dark twin would have prevented the marriage if she could, 
but she couldn’t; however on the night before it, much suspecting 
Captain Murderer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and 
looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw 
him having his teeth filed sharp. Next day she listened all day, 
and heard him make his joke about the house-lamb. And that day 
mouth he had the paste rolled out, and cut the fair twin’s head olf, 
and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and 
put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, and 
picked the bones. 

Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much increased by 
the filing of the Captain’s teeth, and again by the house-lamb joke. 
Putting all things together when he gave out that her sister was 
dead, she divined the truth, and determined to be revenged. So, she 
went up to Captain Murderer’s house, and knocked at the knocker, 
and pulled at the bell, and, when the Captain came to the door, 
said: “ Dear Captain Murderer, marry me next, for 1 always loved 
you, and was jealous of my sister.” The Captain took it as a com- 
pliment, and made a polite answ'er, and the marriage v/as quickly 
arranged. On the night before it, the bride again climbed to his 
window, and again saw him have his teeth filed sharp. At this 
sight she laughed such a terrible laugh at the chink in the shutter 
that the Captain’s blood curdled, and he said; ” 1 hope nothing has 
disagreed with me!” At that she laughed again, a still more terri- 
ble laugh, and the shutter was opened and search made, but she 
w'as nimbly gone, and there was none. Next day they went to 
church in a coach and twelve, and w^ere married. And that day 
month she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain Murderer cut her 
head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted 
her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, 
and picked the bones. 

But before she began to roll out the paste, she had taken a deadly 
poison of a most awful character, distilled from toads’ eyes and 
spiders’ knees; and Captain Murderer had hardly picked her last 
bone, when lie began to swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over 
spots, and to scream. And he went on swelling and turning bluer, 
and being more all over spots and screaming, until he reached from 
floor to ceiling, and from wall to w\all; and then, at one o’clock in 
the morning, he blew up with a loud explosion. At the sound of it, 
all the milk-white horses in the stables broke their halters and went 
mad, and then they galloped over everybody in Captain Murderer’s 


108 


THE UKCOMaIERCIAL TRAVELER. 


house (bea'inninu: with the family blacksmith who had filed his teeth) 
until the whole were dead, and llien they galloped away. 

Hundreds of times did I hear this legend of Captain Murderer in 
my early youth, and added hundreds of tin es was there a mental 
compulsion upon me, in bed, to peep in at his window as the dark 
twin peeped, and to revisit his horrible house, and look at him in 
his blue and spotty and screaming stage, as he reached from floot 
to ceiling, and from wall to wall. The young woman who brought 
me acquainted with Captain Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of 
my terrors, and used to begin, 1 remember — as a sort of introductory 
overture — by clawing the air with both hands, and uttering a long 
low hollow groan. So acutely did 1 suffer from this ceremony in 
combination with this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to 
plead, 1 thought I was hardly strong enoiuih and old enoi gh to hear 
the story again just yet. But she never spared me one word of it, 
and, indeed, commended the awful chalice to my lips as the only 
preservative known to science against “ The Black Cat” — a weird 
and glaring-eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to prowl about 
the world by night, sucking the breath of infancy, and who was en- 
dowed with a special thirst (as I was given to understand) for mine. 
This female bard — may she have been repaid mv debt of obligation 
to her in the matter of nightmares and perspirations!— reappears in 
my luemory as the daughter of a shipwright. Her name was 
Mercy, though she had none on me. There was something of a 
ship building flavor in the following story. As it always recurs to 
me in a vague association with calomel pills, I believe it to have 
been reserved for dull nights when 1 was low with medicine. 

There was once a shipwright, and he wrought in a Government 
Yard, and his name was Chips. And his father’s name before liiin 
was Chips, and his father’s name before him was Chips, and they 
were all ellipses. And Chips the father had sold bimself to the 
Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpeuny nails and half a ton 
of copper and a rat that could speak; and Chips the grandfather 
had sold himself to the Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of ten- 
penny nails and half a ton of copper and a rat that could speak; and 
Chips the great-grandfather had disposed of himself in the same 
direction on the same terms; and the bargain had run in the family 
for a long long time. So, one day, when young Cliips was at work 
in the Dock Slip all alone, down in the dark hold of an old Seventy- 
four that was hauled up for repairs, the Devil presented himself and 
remarked : 

“ A Lemon has pips, 

And a Yard has ships, 

And I’ll have Chips !” 

(I don’t know why, but this fact of the Devil’s expressing himself 
in rhyme was peculiarly trying to me.) Chips looked up wheu he 
heard the words, and there he saw the De'\ il with saucer eyes that 
squinted on a terrible great scale, and that struck out sparks of 
blue fire continually. And whenever he winked his eyes, showers of 
blue sparks came out and his eyelashes made a clattering like flints 
and steels striking lights. And hanging over one of his arms by 
the handle was an iron pot, and under that arm was a bushel of 
tenpeuny nails, and under his other arm was half a ton of copper, 


THE UHCOHHEIlCrAL TliAVELEll. 109 

and aittinfij on one of liis shoulders was a rat that could speak. So 
the Devil said again; 

“ A Lemon has pips, 

And a Yard has ships, 

And I’ll have Chips!” 

(The invariable effect of this alarming tautology on the part of the 
Evil Spirit was to deprive me of my senses for some moments.) So, 
Chips answered never a word, but went on with his work. “ What 
are you doing. Chips?” said the rat that could speak, “lam put- 
ting in new planks where you and your gang have eaten old 
away,” said Chips. ” But we’ll eat them, too,” said the rat that 
could speak; ‘‘and we’ll let in the water and drown the crew, and 
we’ll eat them, too.” Chips, being only a shipwright, and not a 
Man-of-war’s man, said, ‘‘ You are welcome to it.” Buthe couldn’t 
keep his eyes off the half a ton of copper, or the bushel of tenpeuny 
nails; for nails and copper are a shipwright’s sweethearts, and ship- 
wrights will run away with them whenever they can. So; the 
Devil said, ‘‘ 1 see what you are looking at. Chips. You. had better 
strike the bargain. You know the terms. Your father before you 
was well acquainted with them, and so were your grandfather and 
great-grandfather before him.” Says Chips. ‘‘1 like the copper, 
and I like the nails, and 1 don’t mind the pot, but 1 don’t like the 
rat.” Says the Devil, fiercely, ‘‘ You can’t-have the metal without 
him — and Ite's a curiosity. I’m going.” Chips, afraid of losing 
the half a ton of copper and the bushel of nails, then said, ” Give us 
hold!” So, he got the copper and the nails and the pot and the 
rat that could speak, and the Devil vanished. Chips sold the cop- 
per, and he sold the nails, and he would have sold the pot; but, 
whenever he offered it for sale, the rat was in it, and the dealers 
dropped it, and would have nothing to say to the bargain. So, Chips 
resolved to kill the rat, and being at work in the Yard one day wilh 
a great kettle of hot pitch on one side of him, and the iron pot with 
the rat in it on the other, he turned the scalding pitch into the pot, 
and filled it full. Then, he kept his e 3 'e upon it till it cooled and 
hardened, and then he let it stand for twenty days, and then he 
heated the pitch again, and turned it back into the kettle, and then 
he sank the pot in water for twenty days more, and then he got the 
smelters to put it in the furnace for twenty days more, and then 
they gave it him out, red-hot, and looking like red-hot glass instead 
of iron — yet there was the rat in it, just the same as ever! And the 
moment it caught his eye, it said with a jeer ; 

“ A Lemon has pips. 

And a Yard has ships. 

And I'll have Chips!” 

(For this Refrain I had waited, since its last appearance, with inex- 
pressible horror, which now culminated.) Chips now felt certain 
in his own mind that the rat would stick to him; the rat, answering 
his thought, said: ‘‘ I will — like pitch!” 

Fow, as the rat leaped out of the pot when il had spoken, and 
made off. Chips began to hope that it wouldn’t keep its word. 
But, a terrible thing happened next day. For, when dinner-time 


110 


THE UNCOHHERCTAL TRAVELEK. 


came, and the Dock bell rang to strike work, he put his rule into 
the long pocket at the side of hjs trousers, and there he found a 
rat— not that rat, but anotlier rat. And in his hat he found an- 
other; and in his pocket handkerchief another; and in the sleeves 
of his coat, when he pulled it on to go to dinner, two more. And 
from that time he found himself so frightfully intimate with all the 
rats in the Yard, that they climbed up his legs when he was at work, 
and sat on his tools v;hile he used them. And they could all speak to 
one another, and he understood what they said. And they got 
into his lodging, and into his bed, and into his teapot, and into 
his beer, and into his boots. And he was going to be married to a 
corn-chandler’s daughter; and when he gave her a workbox he had 
himself made for her, a rat jumped out of it; and when he put his 
arm round her waist, a rat clung about her; so the marriage was 
broken off, though the banns were already twice xmt up— which the 
parish clerk well remembers, for, as he handed the book to the clergy- 
man for the second of time asking, a large fat rat ran over the leaf. 
(By this time a special cascade of rats was rolling down my back, 
and the whole of my small listening person was overrun with them. 
At intervals ever since I have been morbidly afraid of my own 
pocket, lest my exploring hand should find a specimen or two of 
those vermin in it.) 

You may believe that all this was irery terrible to Chips; but even 
all this was not the worst. He knew, besides, what the rata were 
doing, wherever they were. So, sometimes he would cry aloud, 
when he was at his club at night, “ Oh! Keep the rats out of the 
convicts’ burying-ground! Don’t let them do that!” Or, “ There’s 
one of them at the cheese down-stairs!” Or, “ There’s two of them 
smelling at the baby in the garret!” Or, other things of that sort. 
At last he was voted mad, and lost his work in the Yard, and could 
get no other work. But, King George wanted men, so before very 
long he got pressed for a sailor. And so he was taken oil in a boat 
one evening to his ship, lying at Spithead, ready to sail. And so 
the first thing he made out in her, as he got near her, was the figure- 
head of the old Seventy-four where he had seen the Devil. She was 
called the “Argonaut,” and they rowed right under the bowsprit 
where the figure head of the “ Argonaut,” with a sheep-skin in his 
hand and a blue gown on, was looking out to sea; and sitting star- 
ing on his forehead was the rat who could speak, and his exact 
words were these: “Chips ahoy! Old boy! We’ve pretty well 
eat them too, and we’ll drown the crew, and will eat them too!” 
(Here 1 always became exceedingly faint, and would have asked for 
water, but that 1 was speechless.) 

The ship was bound for the Indies; and, if you don’t know 
where that is, you ought to it, and angels will never love you. 
(Here 1 felt myself an outcast from a future state.) The ship 
set sail that very night, and she sailed, and sailed, and sailed. 
Chips’s feelings were dreadful. Nothing ever equaled his terrors. 
No wonder. At last, one day, he asked leave to speak to the Ad- 
miral. The Admiral giv’ leave. Chips went down on his knees in 
the Great State Cabin. “ Your Honor, unless your Honor, with- 
out a moment’s loss of time, makes sail for the nearest shore, this is 
a doomed ship, and her name is the ‘ Coffin!’ ” “ Young man, 


THE U:N'C0MMEHCTAL TIiAVELEK. 


Ill 


your words are a madman’s words.” ” Your Honor, no; they are 
nibbling us away.” “They?”, “Your Honor, them dreadful 
rats. Dust and hollowness were solid oak ought to be! Rats nib- 
bling a grave for every man on board! Oh! Does your Honor love 
your Lady and your pretty children?” “Yes, my man, to be 
sure.” “ Then, for God’s sake, make for the nearest shore, for at 
this present moment the rats are all stopping in their work, and are 
all looking straight toward you wdth bare teeth, and are all saying 
fo one another that you shall never, never, never, never see jmur 
Lady and your children more.” “Mr poor fellow, .you are a case 
f(»r the doctor. Sentry, take care of this man!” 

So he was bled and he was blistered, and he was this and that, for 
six whole days and nights. So, then he again asked leave to speak 
to the Admiral. The Admiral giv’ leave. He went clown on his 
knees in the Great State Cabin. “ Now, Admiral, you must die! 
You took no warning; you must die! The rats are never wrong in 
their calculations, and they make out that they’ll be through at 
twelve to-night. So, you must die!— With me and all the rest!” 
And so at twelve o’clock there was a great leak reported in the ship, 
and a torrent of water rushed in, and nothing could stop it, and 
they all went down, every living soul. And what the rats — being 
Avater -rats— left of Chips at last floated to shore, and sitting on him 
was an immense overgrown rat, laughing, that dived when the 
corpse touched the beach, and never came up. And there was a 
deal of seaweed on the remains. And if you get thirteen bits of 
seaweed, and dry them, and burn them in the fire, they will go off 
like these thirteen words as plain as plain can be: 

“ A Lemon has pips. 

And a Yard has ships, 

And ni have Chips !” 

The same female bard— descended, possibly, from those terrible 
old scalds who seem to have existed for the express purpose of ad- 
dling the brains of mankind when they begin to investigate lan- 
guages— made a standing pretense which greatly assisted in forcing 
me back to a number of hideous places that I would by all means 
have avoided. This pretense was, that all her ghost stories had oc- 
curred to her own relations. Politeness toward a meritorious family, 
therefore, forbade my doubting them, and they acquired an air of 
authentication that impaired my digestive powers for life. There 
was a narrative concerning an unearthly animal foreboding death, 
which appeared in the opeti street to a parlor-maid wdio “ went to 
fetch the beer ” for supper: first (as I now recall it) assuming the 
likeness of a black dog, and gradually rising on its hind legs, and 
swelling into the semblance of some quadruped greatl}” surpassing 
a hippopotamus: which apparition — not because I deemed it in the 
least improbable, but because 1 felt it to be really too large to bear— 
I feebly endeavored to explain away. But, on Mercy’s retorting 
with wounded dignity that the parlor-maid was her own sister-in-law. 
1 perceived there was no hope, and resigned myself to this zoological 
phenomenon as one of my many pursuers. There was another nar- 
rative describing the apparition of a young woman who came out 
of a glass case, and haunted another young woman until the other 


112 THE UiyOOMMEJiCIAL TRAVELER. 

young woman questioned it, and elicited that its bones (Lord! to 
think of its being so particular about its bones!) were buried under 
the glass case, whereas she required them to be interred, with every 
Undertaking solemnity up to twenty-four pound ten, in another 
particular place. This narrative I considered 1 bad a personal inter- 
est in disproving, because we had glass cases at home, and horv, 
otherwise, was I to be guaranteed from the intrusion of young 
women requiring me to bury them up to twenty-four pound ten, 
wlieu I had only twopence a week? But my remorseless nurse cut 
the ground from under my tender feet by informing me that hdie 
was the other young woman; and 1 couldn’t say, “ 1 don’t believe 
you;” it was not possible. 

Such are a few of the uncommercial journeys that 1 was forced to 
make, against m}'- will, when 1 was very young and unreasoning. 
And really, as to the latter part of them, it is not so very long ago 
—now 1 come to think of it — that 1 w^as asked to undertake them 
once again with a. steady countenance. 


XVI. 

ARCADIAN LONDON. 

Being in a humor for complete solitude and uninterrupted medi- 
tation this autumn, I have taken a lodging for six weeks in the most 
unfrequented part of England — in a word, in London. 

The retreat into which I have withdrawm myself is Bond Street. 
From this lonely spot 1 make pilgrimages into the surrounding wil- 
derness, and traverse extensive tracts of the Great Desert. The 
first solemn feeling of isolation overcome, the first oppressive con- 
sciousness of profound retirement conquered, 1 enjoy that sense of 
freedom, and feel reviving within me that latent wildness of the 
original savage, which has been (upon the whole, somewhat fre- 
quently) noticed by Travelers. 

My lodgings are at a halter’s — my own hatter’s. After exhibiting 
no articles in his window'-, for some w'eeks, but seaside wide-awakes, 
shooting-caps, and a choice of lOugh waterproof head-gear for the 
moors and mountains, he has put upon the heads of his family as 
much of this stock as they could carry, and has taken them off to 
llie Isle of Thanet. His young man alone remains — and remains 
alone — in the shop. The young man has let out the fire at which 
the irons are heated, and saving his strong sense of duty, I see no 
reason wh}^ he should take the shutters down. 

Happily fur himself and for his country, the young man is a vol- 
unteer; most happily for himself, or I think he wmuld become the 
prey of a settled melancholy. For, to live surrounded by human 
hats, and alienated from human heads to fit them on, is surely a... 
great endurance. But, the young man, sustained by practicing his 
exercise, and by constantlj’- furbishinc up his regulation plume (it is 
unnecessary to observe that, as a hatter, he is in a cock’s-feather 
corps), is lesigned, and uncomplaining. On a Saturday, wdien he 
closes early and gets his Knickerbockers on, he is even cheerful. 1 
am gratefully particular in this reference to him, because he is my 


THE UXCOMMKUCIAL TKAVELEK. 


113 


companion tbrougli many peaceful hours. My hatter has a desk up 
certain steps behind his counter, inclosed like the clerk’s desk at 
church. 1 shut myself into this place of Seclusion after breakfast, 
ami meditate. At such times I observe the young man loading an 
imaginary rifle with tlie greatest precision, and maintaining a most 
galling and destructive fire upon the national enemy. I thank him 
publicly fur his companionship and his patriotism. 

The simple character of my life, and the calm nature of the scenes 
by which I am surrounded, occasion me to rise early. 1 go forth 
in my slippers, and promenade the pavement. It is pastoral to feel 
the freshness of the air in the uninhabited town, and to appreciate 
the shepherdess character of the few milkwomen who purvey so 
little milk that it would be wmrth nobody’s while to adulterate it, if 
anybody were left to undertake the task. On the crowded seashore, 
the great demand for milk, combined with the strong local tempta- 
tion of chalk, would betray itself in the lowered quality of the 
article. In Arcadian London I derive it from the cow. 

The Arcadian simplicity of the nndropolis altogether, and the 
primitive ways into which it has fallen in this autumnal Gold'en 
Age, make it entirely new to me. Within a few hundred yards of 
my retreat is the house of a friend who maintains a most sumptuous 
butler. 1 never, until yesterday, saw that butler out of superfine 
black broadcloth. Until yesterday, I never saw him off duty, never 
saw him (he is the best of butlers) with the appearance of having 
any mind for anything but the glory of his master and his master’s 
friends. Yesterday morning, walking in my slippers near the 
house of which he is the prop and ornament— a house now a w'aste 
of shutters— 1 encountered that butler, also in his slippers, and in a 
shooting suit of one color, and in a low-crowned straw hat, smok- 
ing an early cigar. He felt that we liad formerly met in another 
state of existence, and that we were translated into a new sphere. 
Wisely and well, he passed me without recognition. Under his arm 
he carried the morning paper, and shortly afterward I saw him 
sitting on a rail in the pleasant open landscape of liegent Street, 
perusing it at his ease under the ripening sun. 

My landlord having taken his whole establishment to be salted 
down, I am waited on by an elderly woman laboring under a 
chronic sniff, who, at the shadowy hour of half past nine o’clock ot 
every evening, gives admittance at the street-door to a meager and 
moldy old man whom I have never yet seen detached from a flat 
])int of beer in a pewter pot. The meager and moldy old man is 
her husband, and the pair have a dejected consciousness that they 
are not justified in appearing on the surface of the earth. They 
come out of some hole when London empties itself, and go in again 
when it fills. 1 saw them arrive on the evening when I myself took 
possession, anil they arrived with the flat pint of beer, and their bed 
in a bundle. The old man is a weak old man, and appeared to me 
to get the bed down the kitchen stairs by tumbling down with and 
upon it. They make their bed in the lowest and remotest corner of 
the basement, and they smell of bed, and have no possession but 
bed: unless it be (which 1 rather infer from an under-current of 
flavor in them) cheese. I know their name, through the chance of 
having called the wife’s attention, at half past nine on the second 


114 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


evening of our acquaintance, to the circumstance of there being some 
one at the house-door; when she apologetically explained, “It’s 
only Mr. Klem.” Whal? becomes of Mr. Klem all day, or when he 
goes out, or why, is a mystery I cannot penetrate; but at half past 
nine he never fails to turn up on the door-step with the flat pint of 
))eer. And the pint of beer, flat as it is, is so much more important 
than himself, that it always seems to my fancy as if it had found 
him driveling in the street, and had humanely brought him home. 
In making his way below, Mr. Klem never goes down the middle 
of the passage, like another Christian, but shutHes against the wall 
as if entreating me to take notice that he is occupying as little space 
as possible in the house; and, whenever I come upon him face to 
face, he backs from me in fascinated confusion. The most extra- 
ordinary circumstance 1 have traced, in connection with this aged 
couple, is, that there is a Miss Klem, their daughter, apparently ten 
years older than either of them, who has also a bed, and smells of 
it, and carries it about the earth at dusk, and hides it in deserted 
houses. I came into this piece of knowledge through Mrs. Kleni’s 
beseeching me to sanction the sheltering of Miss Klem under that 
roof for a single night, “ between her taking care of the upper part 
in Pall Mall which the family of his back, and a ’ouse in Serjaraeses 
Street, which the family of leaves towng-ter-morrer." I gave my 
gracious consent (having nothing that I knew of to do with it), and 
in the shadowy hours Miss Klem became perceptible on the door- 
step, wrestling with a bed in a bundle. Where she made it up for 
the night I cannot positively state, but 1 think, in a sink. I know 
that, with the instinct of a reptile or an insect, she stowed it and 
herself away in deep obscurity. In the Klem family 1 have noticed 
another remarkable gift of nature, and that is the power they pos- 
sess of converting everything into flue. Such broken victuals as 
they take by stealth appear (whatever the nature of the viands) in- 
variably to generate flue; and even the nightly pint of beer, instead 
of assimilating naturally, strikes me as breaking out in that form, 
equally on the shabby gown of Mrs. Klem, and the threadbare coat 
of her husband. 

Mrs. Klem has no idea of my name — as to Mr. Klem he has no idea 
of anything — and only knows me as her good gentleman. Thus, if 
doubtful whether I am in my room or no, Mrs. Klem taps at the 
door and says, “ Is my good gentleman here?” Or, if a messenger 
desiring to see me were consistent with my solitude, she w’ouldshow 
him in with “Here is my good gentleman.’’ I find this to be a 
generic custom. For, 1 meant to hav^e observed before now% that in 
its Arcadian time all my part of London is indistinctly pervaded by 
the Klem species. They creep about wdth beds, and go to bed in 
miles of deserted houses. They hold no companionship, except 
that sometimes, after dark, two of them will emerge from opposite 
houses, and meet in the middle of the road as on neutral ground, or 
w’ill peep from adjoining houses over an interposing barrier of area 
railings, and compare a few reserved mistrustful notes respecting 
their good ladies or good gentlemen. This I have discovered in the 
course of various solitary rambles I have taken Northward from my 
retirement, along the awful perspectives of Wimple Street, Harley 
Street, and similar frowning regions. Their effect would be scarcely 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 115 

distinguishable from that of the primeval forests, but for the Klem 
stragglers; these may be dimly observed, when the heavy shadows 
fall, flitting to and fro, putting up the door-chain, taking in the pin- 
of beer, lowering like phantoms at the dark parlor windows, or set 
cretly consorting underground with the dust'bin and the water- 
cistern. 

In the Burlington Arcade, 1 observe, with peculiar pleasure, a 
primitive state of manners to have superseded the baneful influ- 
ences of ultra-civilization. Nothing can surpass the innocence of 
the ladies’ shoe-shops, the artificial flower repositories, and the head- 
dress depots. They are in strange hands at this time of the year — 
hands of unaccustomed persons, who are imperfectly acquainted 
with the prices of the goods, and contemplate them with unsophisti- 
cated delight and wonder. The children of these virtuous people 
exchange familiarities in the Arcade, and temper the asperity of the 
two tall beadles. Their youthful prattle blends in an unwonted 
manner with the harmonious shade of the scene, and the general effect 
is as of the voices of birds in a grove In this happy restoration of the 
golden time, it has been my privilege even to see the bigger beadle’s 
wife. She broue-ht him his dinner in a basin, and he ate it in his 
arm-chair, and afterward fell asleep like a satiated child. At Mr. 
Truefitt’s, the excellent hairdresser’s, they are learning French to 
beguile the time; and even the few solitaries left on guard at Mr. 
Atkinson’s, the perfumer’s round the corner (generally the most 
inexorable gentleman in London, and the most scornful of three- 
and-sixpence), condescend a little, as they drowsily bide or recall 
their turn for chasing the ebbing Neptune on the ribbed sea-sand. 
From Messrs. Hunt & Roskell’s, the jewelers, all things are absent 
but the precious stones, and the gold and silver, and the soldierly 
pensioner at the door with his decorated breast. I might stand night 
and day, for a month to come, in Saville Row, with my tongue out, 
yet not find a doctor to look at it for love or money. The dentists’ 
instruments are rusting in their drawers, and their horrible cool 
parlors, where people pretend to read the Every-Day Book, and not 
to be afraid, are doing penance for their grimness in white sheets. 
The light- w^eight of shrewd appearance, with one eye always shut up, 
as if he were eating a sharp gooseberry in all seasons, who usually 
stands at the gateway of the livery stables on very little legs under 
a very large waistcoat, has gone to Doncaster. Of such undesigu- 
ing aspect is his guileless yard now, with its gravel and scarlet- 
beans, and the yellow Brake housed under a glass roof in a corner, 
that 1 almost believe 1 could not be taken in there, if I tried. In 
(he places of business of the great tailors, the cheval-glasses are dim 
and dusty for lack of being looked into. Ranges ot brown-paper 
coat and waistcoat bodies look as funereal as if they were the hatch- 
ments of the customers with whose names they are inscribed; the 
measuring tapes hang idle on the wall; the order-taker, left on the 
-liopeless chance of some one looking in, yawns in the last extremity 
over the book of patterns, as if he were trying to read that entertain- 
ing library. The hotels in Brook Street have no one in them, and 
the staffs of servants stare disconsolately for next season out of all 
the windows. The very man who goes about like an erect Turtle, 
between two boards recommendatory of the Sixteen- Shilling 


lie 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAYELEH 


Trousers, is aware of liimself as a hollow mockery, and eats filberts 
while he leans his hinder shell against a wall. 

Among these tranquilizing objects it is niy delight to walk and 
meditate. Soothed by the repose around me, I wander insensibly 
to considerable distances, and guide myself back by the stars. 
Thus, 1 enjoy the contrast of a few still partially inhabited and busy 
spots, where all the lights are not fled, where all the garlands are 
not dead, whence all but 1 have not departed. Then does it appear 
to me that in this age three things are clamorously required of Man 
in the miscellaneous thoroughfares of the metropolis. Firstly, that 
he have his boots cleaned. Secondly, that he eat a penny ice. 
Thirdly, that he get himself photographed. Then do 1 speculate. 
What have those seamworn artists been who stand at the photograph 
doors in Greek caps, sample in hand, and mysteriously salute the 
public— the female public with a pressing tenderness— to come in 
and be “took”? What did they do with their greasy blandish- 
ments before the era of cheap photography? Of what class were 
theii previous victims, and how victimized? And how did they 
get, and how did they pay for, that large collection of likenesses, 
all purporting to have been taken inside, with the taking of none 
of whicli had that establishment any more to do than with the tak- 
ing of Delhi? 

But these are small oases, and 1 am soon back again in metropoli- 
tan Arcadia. It is my impression that much of its serene and peace- 
ful character is attributable to the absence of customary Talk. 
How do I know but there may be subtle influences in Talk, to vex 
the souls of men who don’t hear it? Plow do I know but that Talk, 
five, ten, twenty miles off, may get into the airland disagree wdtli 
me? It I rise from my bed, vaguely troubled and wearied and sick 
of my life, in the session of Parliament, wdio shall say that my noble 
friend, my right reverend friend, my right honorable friend, my 
honorable friend, my honorable and learned friend, or my honorable 
and gallant friend, may not be responsible for that effect upon my 
nervous system? Too much Ozone in the air, I am informed and 
fully believe (though I have no idea what it is), would affect me in 
a marvelously disagreeable way: why may not too much Talk? I 
don’t see or hear the Ozone: I don’t see or hear the Talk. And 
there is so much Talk; so much too much; such loud cry, and such 
scant supply of wool; such a deal of fleecing, and so little fleece! 
Hence, in the Arcadian season, 1 find it a delicious triumph to walk 
down to deserted Westminster, and see the Courts shut up; to walk 
a little further, and see the Twm Houses shut up: to stand in tiie 
Abbey Yard, like the JMew Zealander of the grand English History 
(concerning which unfortunate man a whole rookery of mares’ nests 
is generally being discovered), and gloat upon the ruins of Talk. 
Returning to my primitive solitude, and lying down to sleep, my 
grateful heart expands with the consciousness that there is no ad- 
journed Debate, no ministerial explanation, nobody to give notice 
of intention to ask the noble Lord at the head of her Majesty’s 
Grovernment five-and-twenty bootless questions in one, no term- 
time with legal argument, no Nisi Prius with eloquent appeal to 
British Jury; that the air will to-morrow, and to-morrow, and 
to morrow remain untroubled by this superabundant generating of 


THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 117 

Talk. In a minor degree it is a delicious triumph to me to ao into 
the club, and see the carpets up, and the Bores and the other dust 
dispersed to the four winds. Again, New Zealander-like, I stand 
on the cold hearth, and say in the solitude, “ Here I watched Bore 
A 1, with voice always m^'^steriously low, and head always mysteri- 
ously drooped, whispering political secrets into the ears of Adam’s 
confiding children. Accursed be his memory for ever and a day!” 

But, 1 have all this time been coming to the point, that the hnppy 
nature of my retirement is most sweetly expressed in its being the 
abode of Love. It is, as it were, an inexpensive Agapemone: 
nobody’s speculation ; everybody’s profit. The one great result of 
the resumption of primitive habits, and (convertible terms) the not 
having much to do, is, the abounding of Love. 

The Klem species are incapable ot the softer emotions; probably, 
in that low nomadic race, the softer emotions have alt degenerated 
into flue. But, with this exception, all the sharers of my retreat 
make love. 

I have mentioned Saville Row. We all know the Doctor’s serv- 
ant. We all know what a respectabie man he is, what a hard dry 
man, what a firm man, what a confidential man: how he lets us 
into the waiting-room, like a man who knows minutely what is the 
matter with us, but from whom the rack should not wring the 
secret. In the prosaic “season,” he has distinctly the appearance 
of a man conscious of money in the Savings Bank, and taking his 
stand on his respectability with both feet. At that lime it is as im- 
possible to associate iiim with relaxation, or any human weakness, 
as it is to meet his eye without feeling guilty of indisposition. In 
the blest Arcadian time, how changed! 1 have seen him in a pepper- 
and-salt jacket — jacket — and drab trousers, with his arm round the 
waist of a bootmaker’s housemaid, smiling in open day. 1 have seen 
him at the pump by the Albany, unsoliciledly pumping for two fair 
young creatures, whose figures, as they bent over their cans, were 
— if 1 may be allowed an original expression — a model for a sculp- 
tor, I have seen him trying the piano in the Doctor’s drawing- 
room with his forefinger, and have heard him humming tunes in 
praise of lovely woman. I have seen him seated on a fire-engine, 
and going (obviously in search of excitement) to a fire. I saw him, 
one moonlight evening, when the peace and purity of our Arcadian 
west were at their height, polk with the lovely daughter of a cleaner 
of gloves, from the door steps of his own residence, across Saville 
Row, round by Clifford Street and Old Burlington Street, back to 
Burlington Gardens. Is this the Golden Age revived, or Iron Lon- 
don? 

The Dentist’s servant. Is that man no mystery to us, no type of 
invisible power? The tremendous individual knows (who else 
does?) what is done with the extracted teeth; he knows what goes 
on in the little room where something is alwmys being washed or 
filed; he knows what warm spicy infusion is put into the comforta- 
ble tumbler from which we rinse our wounded mouth, with a gap 
in it that feels a foot wide; be knows whether the thing we spit 
into is a fixture communicating with the Thames, or could be 
cleared away for a dance; be sees the liorrible parlor wdieu there 
are no patients in it, and he could reveal, if he would, wiiat he- 


118 


THE UHCOMMEllCIAL TllAV'ELER. 


comes of tlie Every-Day Book then. The conviction of my coward 
conscience, when I sfie that man in a professional light, is, that he 
knows all the statistics of my teeth and gums, my double teeth, my 
single teeth, my stopped teeth, and my sound. In this Arcadian 
rest, I am fearless of liim as of a harmless, powerless creature in a 
Scotch cap, who adores a young lady in a voluminous crinoline at a 
neighboring billiard-room, and whose passion would be uninflu- 
enced if every one of her teeth were false. They may be. He 
takes them all on trust. 

In secluded corners of the place of my seclusion there are little 
shops withdrawn from public curiosity, and never two together, 
where servants’ perquisites are bought. The cook may dispose of 
grease at these modest and convenient marts; the butler, of bottles; 
the valet and lady’s-maid, of clothes; most servants, indeed, of 
most things they may happen to lay hold of. I have been told that 
in sterner times loving correspondence, otherwise interdicted, may 
be maintained by letter through the agency of some of these useful 
establishments. In the Arcadian autumn no such device is neces- 
sary. Everybody loves, and openly and blamelessly loves. My 
landlord’s young man loves the whole of one side of the way of 
Old Bond Street, and is beloved several doors up New Bond Street 
besides. 1 never look out of window’^ but I see kissing of hands 
going on all around me. It is the morning custom to glide from 
shop to shop, and exchange tender sentiments; it is the evening 
custom for couples to stand hand-in-hand at house-doors, or roam, 
linked in that flowery manner, through the unpeopled streets. 
There is nothing else to do but love; and what there is to do is 
done. 

In unison with this pursuit, a chaste simplicity obtains in the do- 
mestic habits of Arcadia. Its few scattered people dine early, live 
moderately, sup socially, and sleep soundly. It is rumored that 
the Beadles of the Arcade, from being the mortal enemies of boys, 
have signed with tears an address to Lord Shaftesbury, and sub- 
scribed to a ragged school. ISlo wonder! For they might turn their 
heavy maces into crooks, and tend sheep in the Arcade, to the purl- 
ing of the water-carts as they give the thirsty streets much more to 
drink than they can carry. 

A happy Golden Age, and a serene tranquillity. Charming pict. 
lire, but it will fade. The iron age will return ; London will come 
back to town. If 1 show my tongue then in Saville Row for half a 
minute, 1 shall be prescribed for; the Doctor’s man and the Den- 
tist’s man will then pretend that these days of unprofessional inno- 
cence never existed. Where Mr. and Mrs. Klem and their bed will 
be at that time, passes human knowledge; but my hatter hermitage 
will then know them no more, nor will it then know me. The desk 
at which I have written these meditations will retributively assist at 
the making out of my account, and the wheels of gorgeous carriages 
and the hoofs of high-stepping horses will crush the silence out of 
Bond Street-- will grind Arcadia away, and give it to the elements 
in granite pow'der. 


THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


119 


XVII. 

THE CALAIS NIGHT MAIL. 

It is an unsettled question with me whether 1 shall leave Calais 
somethino: handsome in my will, or whether 1 shall leave it my male- 
diction. I hate it so much, and yet I am always so very glad to 
see it, that I am in a stale of constant indecision on this subject. 

When I first made acquaintance with Calais, it was as a maunder- 
ing young wretch in a clammy perspiration and dripping saline par- 
ticles, who was conscious of no extremities but the one great ex- 
tremity, sea-sickness— who was a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid 
headache somewhere in its stomach — who had been put into a hor- 
rible swing in Dover Harbor, and had tumbled giddily out of it on 
the French coast, or the Isle of Man, or anywhere. Times have 
changed, and now 1 enter Calais self-reliant and rational. 1 know 
where it is beforehand, 1 keep a look-out for it, 1 recognize its land- 
marks when 1 see any of them, I am acquainted with its ways, and 
1 know — and 1 can bear— its worst behavior. 

Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eyesight, and 
discouraging hope! Dodging flat streak, now on this bow, now on 
that, now anywhere, now everywhere, now nowhere! In vain Cape 
Grinez, coming frankly forth into the sea, exhorts the failing to be 
stout of heart and stomach: sneaking Calais, prone behind its bar, 
invites emetically to despair. Even when it can no longer quite 
conceal itself in its muddy dock, it has an evil way. of falling off, 
has Calais, which is more hopeless than its invisibility. The pier is 
all but on the bowsprit, and .you think you are there- roll, roar, 
wash! — Calais has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst out to 
look for it. It has a last dip and a slide in its character, has Calais, 
to be especially commended to the infernal gods. Thrice accursed 
be that garrison town, when it dives under the boat’s keel, and 
comes up a league or two to the right, with the packet shivering and 
spluttering and starimr about for it! 

Not but what 1 have my animosities toward Dover. 1 particularly 
detest Dover for the self-complacency with which it goes to bed. 
It always goes to bed (when 1 am going to Calais) with a more brill- 
iant display of lamp and candle than any other town. Mr. and 
Mrs. Birmingham, host and hostess of the Lord Warden Hotel, arc 
my much-esteemed friends, but they are too conceited about the 
comforts of that establishment when the Night Mail is starting. I 
know it is a good house to stay at, and 1 don’t want the fact insist- 
ed upon in all its warm briglit windows at such an hour. 1 know 
the Warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls or pitches, and 1 
object to ils big outline seeming to insist upon that circumstance, 
anil, as it wmre, to come over me with it, when I am reeling on the 
deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden, likewise, for obstructing 
that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall 
1 not know’' that it blow’s quite soon enough, 'witliout the officious 
Warden’s interference? 


120 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TKAVELER< 


As 1 wait here, on board the night packet, for the South-Eastern 
Train to come down with the Mail, Dover appears to me to be 
illuminated for some intensely aggravating festivity in my personal 
dishonor. All its noises smack of taunting praises of the land, and 
dispraises of the gloomy sea, and of me for going on it. The drums 
upon the heights have gone to bed, or I know they would rattle 
taunts against me for having my unsteady footing on this slippery 
deck. The many gas eyes of the Marine Parade twinkle in an 
offensive manner, as if with derision. The distant dogs of Dover 
bark at me in my misshapen wrappers, as if i were Richard the 
Third, . 

A screech, a bell, and two red e^^es come gliding down the Ad 
miralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by 
the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as 
if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented by 
circum'stances over which they had no control from drinking peace- 
ably. We, the boat, become violentlv agitated — rumble, hum, 
SCI earn, roar, and establish an immense family washing-day at each 
paddle-box. Bright patches break out in the train as the doors of 
the post-office vans are opened, and instantly stooping figures with 
sacks upon their backs begin to be beheld among the piles, descend- 
ing, as it would seem, in ghostly procession, to Davy Jones’s 
Locker. The passengers come on board, a few shadowy French- 
men, with hat-boxes shaped like the stoppers of gigantic case- 
bottles; a few shadowy Germans in immense fur coats and boots; a 
few shadowy Englishmen prepared tor the worst, and pretending 
not to expect it. 1 cannot disguise from ray uncommercial mind 
the miserable fact that we are a body of outcasts; that the attend- 
ants on us are as scant in number as may serve to get rid of us with 
the least possible delay; that there are no night loungers interested 
in ns; that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder at us; that the 
sole object is to commit us to the deep and abandon us. Lo, the 
two red eyes glaring in increasing distance, and then the very train 
itself has gone to bed before we are oft! 

What is the moral support derived by some sea-going amateurs 
from an umbrella? Why do certain voyagers across the Channel 
always putj up that article, and hold it up with a grim and fierce 
tenacity? A fellow-creature near me — whom 1 only know to hew 
fellow-creature because of his umbrella: without which he migb! 
be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkhead — clutches that instrument 
with a desperate grasp, that will not relax until he lands at Calais. 
Is there any analogy, in certain constitutions, between keeping an 
umbrella up, and keeping the spirits up? A hawser thrown on 
board with a flop replies: “Stand by!” “Stand by, below!” 
“Half a turn ahead!” “Half a turn ahead!” “Half Speed!” 
“ Half speed!” “Port!” “ Portl” “ Steady !”“ Steady!” “Go 
on!” “Goon!” 

A stout wooden wedge driven in at my right temple and out at 
my left, a floating deposit of lukewarm oil in my throat, and a com- 
pression of the bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of pincers — these 
are the personal sensations by wdiich 1 know w^e are off, and b}'- 
which I shall continue to know it until 1 am on the soil of France. 
My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably. 


THE UXCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER, 


I2i 


when two or tliree skating shadows, that have been trying to walk 
or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadov/s in tar- 
paulin slide with them into corners, and cover them up. Then the 
South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way that bodes no 
good. 

It is about this period that my detestation ot Calais knows no 
bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that 1 never will forgive that 
hated town. 1 have done so before, many times, but that is past. 

Let me register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm 

That was an avs’kward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for 
it gives a complaining roar. 


The w’ind blows stiffly from the Nor-East, the seas run high, we 
ship a deal ot water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless 
passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were soi led 
out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, 1 cannot 
pretend that 1 am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A 
general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling and scooping, 1 am 
aWare of, and a general knocking about of Nature; but the im- 
pressions I receive are very vague. In a sweet faint temper, some- 
thing like the smell of damaged oranges, 1 think I should feel 
languidly benevolent if I had time. I have not time, because 1 am 
under a curious compulsion to occupy myself with the Irish melo- 
dies. “ Rich and rare w'ere the gems she wore,” is the particular 
melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in the 
most charming manner, and with the greatest expression. Now 
and then 1 raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, 
in the most uncomfortable of wet attitudes, but I don’t mind it), 
and notice that I am a whirling shuttlecock between a f ery battle- 
dore of a lighthouse on the French coast, and a fiery battledore of a 
lighthouse on the English coast; but I don’t notice it particularly, 
except to feel envenomed in my hatred of Calais. Then I go on 
again, ” Rich and rare were the ge-emsshe-e e-e wore. And a bright 
gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-a-r 
beyond I am particularly proud of my execution here, when I 
liecoine aware of another awkward sliockfrom the sea, and another 
protest from the funnel, and a fellow-creature at the paddle box 
more audibly indisposed than I think he need be—” Her sparkling 
gems, or snow-white wand. But O her beauty was fa-a-a-a-a-r be- 
yond ’’—another awkward one here, and the fellow-creature with 
ihc umbrella down and picked up — ” Her spa a-rkliug ge eins, or 
her Port! port! steady! steady! snow-white fellow-creature at the 
paddle-box very selfishly audible, bump roar wash white Wand.” 

As my execution of the Irish melodies, partakes of my imperfect 
perceptions of what is going on around me, so what is going on 
around me becomes something else than what it is. The stokeis 
open the furnace doors below, to feed the fires, and I am again on 
the box of the old Exeter Telegraph fast coach, and that is the light 
of the for-ever-extinguished coach lamps, and the gleam on the 
hatches and paddle-boxes is gleam on cottages and haystacks, 
and the monotonous noise of the engines is the steady jingle of the 
splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel roar of protest at 
every violent roll becomes the regular blast of a high-pressure eu- 
gine~ and I recognize the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I 


TTIK UXCOM^^IERriAL TRAVELER/ 


122 

ascended the Mississippi when the American civil war was not, and 
when only its causes were. A fragment, of mast on which the light 
of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so, become 
suggestive of Franconi’s Circus at Paris, where I shall be this very 
night mayhap (for it must be morning now), and they dance to the 
self same time and tune as the trainecl steed, Black Raven. What 
may be the speciality of these waves as they come rushing on, 1 
cannot desert the pressing demands made upon me by the gems she 
wore to inquire, but they are charged with something about Robin- 
son Crusoe, and 1 think it was in Yarmouth Roads that he first 
went a seafaring, and was near foundering (what a terrific sound 
that word had for me when 1 was a boy!) in his first gale of wind. 
{Still, through all this, 1 must ask her (who was she 1 wonder?) for 
♦he fiftietli time, and without ever stopping. Does she not fear to 
stray. So lone and lovely through this bleak way. And are Erin’s 
sons so good or so cold, As not to be tempted by more fellow- 
creatures at the paddle-box or gold? Sir Knight, 1 feel not the least 
alarm, No son of Erin will oiler me harm. For though they love 
fellow-creature with umbrella down again and golden store. Sir 
Knight, they what a tremendous one love honor and virtue more: 
For though they iove Stewards with a bull’s eye bright, theyTl 
trouble you for your ticket, sir— rough passage to-nighl ! 

1 freely admit it to be a miserable piece of human weakness and 
inconsistency, but I no sooner become conscious of those last words 
from the steward than I begin to soften toward Calais. "Whereas 1 
have been vindictively wisiung that those Calais burghers who 
came out of their town by a short cut into the History of England, 
with those fatal ropes round their necks by which they have since 
been towed into so many cartoons, had all been hanged on the spot, 
1 now begin to regard them as highly respectable and virtuous 
tradesmen. Looking about me, I see the light of Cape Grinez well 
astern of the boat on the davits to leeward, and the light of Calais 
Harbor undeniably at its old tricks, but still ahead and shining. 
Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say of attachment to 
Calais, begin to expand my bosom. I have weak notions that I will 
stay there a day or two on my way back. A faded and recumbent 
stranger, pausing in a profound reverie over the rim of a basin, 
asks me what kind of place Calais is? I tell him (Heaven forgive 
me!) a very agreeable place indeed — rather hilly than otherwise. 

So strangely goes the time, and, on the whole, so quickly— 
though still i seem to have been on board a w^eek — that I am 
bumped rolled gurgled washed and pitched into Calais Harbor before 
her maiden smile has finally lighted h^r thiough the Green Isle. 
When blest forever is she who relied. On entering Calais at the top 
of the tide. For we have not to land to-night down among those 
slimy limbers— covered with green hair as if it were the mermaids’ 
favorite combing-place— where one crawls to the surface of the 
jetty like a stranded shrimp, but we go steaming up the harbor to 
the Railway Station Quay. And as we go, the sea washes in and 
out among piles and planks, with dead heavy beats, and in quite a 
furious manner (whereof we are proud), and the lamps shake in the 
wind, and the bells of Calais striking One seem to send their vibra- 
tions struggling against troubled air, as we have come struggling 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


123 

against troubled water. And now, in the sudden relief and wiping 
of faces, everybody on board seems to have had a prodigious 
double tooth out, and to be this very instant free of the Dentist’s 
hands. And now we all know, tor the first time, how wet and 
cold we are, and how salt we are; and now 1 love Calais with my 
heart of hearts! 

“ Hotel Dessin!” (but in this one case it is not a vocal cry; it is 
but a brighCluster in the eyes of the cheery representative of that 
best of inns). “ Hotel Meurice!” “ Hotel de France!” ” Hotel de 
Calais!” ‘‘ The Koyal Hotel, sir, Anglaise house!” ” You going 
to Parry, sir?” ” Your baggage registair froo, sir?” Bless ye, my 
Touters, bless ye, my commissionaires, bless ye, my hungry*eyed 
inysteries in caps of a military form, who are always here, day or 
night, fair weather or foul, seeking inscrutable jobs which I never 
see you get! Bless ye, my Custom-House officers in green and gray; 
permit me to grasp the welcome hands that descend into my travel- 
ing bag, one on each side, and meet at the bottom to give my change 
of linen a peculiar shake up, as if it were a measure of chaff or 
grain! 1 have nothing to declare. Monsieur le Douanier, except 
that, when I cease to breathe, Calais will be found written on my 
heart. No article liable to local duty have 1 with me. Monsieur 
rOfficier de I’Octroi, unless the overflowing of a breast devoted to 
your charming town should be in that wise chargeable. Ah! see at 
the gangway by the twinkling lantern, my dearest brother and friend, 
he once of the Passport Office, lie w’ho collects the names! 
May he be forever changeless in his buttoned blacR surlout, wdth 
his note-book in his hand, and his tall black hat surmounting Ids 
round smiling patient face! Let us embrace, my dearest brother. I 
am yours a tout jamais— for the whole of ever. 

Calais up and doing at the railway station, and Calais down and 
dreaming in its bed: Calais with something of ‘‘an ancient and fish- 
like-smell ” about it, and Calais blown and sea-washed pure; Calais 
represented at the Buffet by savory roast fowds, hot coffee, cognac, 
and bordeaux; and Calais represented everywhere by flitting per- 
sons with a monomania for changing money — though I never shall 
be able to understand, in my present state of existence, how they 
live by it, but I suppose 1 should, if I understood the currency 
question— Calais and Calais detail, forgive one w^ho has 

deeply wrontred you. I was not fully aware of it on the other side, 
but I meant Dover. 

Ding, ding! To the carriages, gentlemen the travelers. Ascend 
then, gentlemen the travelers, for Hazebroucke, Lille, Douai, Brux- 
elles, Arras, Amiens, and Paris! I, humble representative of the 
uncommercial interest, ascend with the rest, Tire train is light to- 
night, and I share my compartment with but two fellow-travelers; 
one, a compatriot in an obsolete cravat, who thinks it a quite un- 
accountable thing that they don’t keep ‘‘London time” on a 
French railway, and who is made auary by my modestly suggesting 
the possibility of Paris time being more in their way; the other, a 
young priest, with a very small bird in a very small cage, who 
feeds the small bird with a quill, and then puts him up in the net- 
work above his head, where he advances, twittering, to his front 
wires and seems to address me in an electioneering manner. The 


12i 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


compatriot (who crossed in the boat, and whom 1 judge to be pome 
person of distinetiou, as he was shut up, like a stately species of 
rabbit in a private hutch on deck) and the young priest (who joined 
us at Calais) are soon asleep, and then the bird and 1 have it all to 
ourselves. 

A stormy night still; a night that sweeps the wires of the electric 
telegraph with a wild and fitful hand; a night so very stormy, 
with the added storm of the train-progress through it, that when 
the Guard comes clambering round to mark the tickets while we are 
at full speed (a really horrible performance in an express train, 
though he holds on to the open window by his elbows in the most 
deliberate manner), he stands in such a whirlwind that 1 grip him 
fast by the collar, and feel it next to manslaughter to let him go. 
Still, when he is gone, the small bird remains at his front wires 
feebly twittering to me— twittering and twittering, until, leaning 
back in my place, and looking at him in drowsy fascination, I find 
that he seems to jog my memory as we rush along. 

Uncommercial travels (thus the small, small bird) have lain in 
their idle thriftless way through all this range of sw^amp and 
dyke, aslhrough many other odd places; and about here, as you 
very well know, are the queer old stone farm-houses, approached 
by drawbridges, and the windmills that you get at by boats. Here 
are the lands where the women hoe and dig, paddling canoe-wise 
from field to field, and here are the cabarets, and other peasant 
houses where the stone dovecotes in the littered yards are as strong 
as warders’ towers in old castles. Here are the long monotonous 
miles of canal, with the great Dutch-built barges garishly painted, 
and the towing girls, sometimes harnessed by the forehead, some- 
times by the girdle and the shoulders, not a pleasant sight to see. 
Scattered through this country are mighty works of Vauban, wdiom 
you know about, and regiments of such corporals as you heard of 
once upon a time, and many a blue-eyed Bebelle. Through these 
fiat districts, in the shining summer days, walk those long grotesque 
files of young novices in enormous shovel hats, whom you remem- 
ber blackening the ground checkered by the avenues of leafy trees. 
And now that Hazebroucke slumbers certain kilometers ahead, re- 
call the summer evening when your dusty feet, strolling up from 
the station, tended hap-hazard to a Fair there, where the oldest in- 
habitants were circling round and round a barrel-organ on hobby 
horses with the greatest gravity, and where the principal show in 
the fair was a Religious Richardson’s — literally, on its own an- 
nouncement in great letters. Theatre Reltgieux, In which im- 
proving Temple the dramatic representation was of “ all the inter- 
esting events in the life of cur Lord,* from the Manger to the 
Tomb;” the principal female character, without any reservation or 
exception, being, at the moment of your arrival, engaged in trim- 
ming the external Moderators (as it was growing dusk), while the 
next principal female cliaracter took the tuoney, and the Young St. 
John disported himself upside down on the platform. 

Looking up at this point to confirm the small, small bird in everv 
particular he has mentioned, I linil he has ceased to twitter, and 
has put his head under his wing. Therefore, in my different way 
i follow the good example, 


• THE UI^COMMEKCTAL TRAVELER. 


125 


XVIIL 

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OP MORTALITY. 

I HAD parted from the small bird at somewhere aliout four o’clock 
in the morning, when he had got out at Arras, and had been re- 
ceived by two shovel hats in waiting at the station, who presented 
an appropriately ornithological and crow-like appearance. My com- 
patriot and I had gone onfo Paris; my compatriot enliglitening me 
occasionally with a long list of the enormous grievances of French 
railway traveling; every one of which, as I am a sinner, was per- 
fectly new to me, though I have as much experience of French 
railways as most uncommercials. I had left him at the terminus 
(through his conviction, against all explanation and remonstrance, 
that his baggage ticket was his passenger ticket), insisting in a 
very high temper, to the functionary on duty, that in his own per- 
sonal identity he was four packages weighing so many killogrammes 
— as if he had been Cassim Baba! I had bathed and breakfasted, 
and was strolling on the bright quays. The subject of my medita- 
tions was the question whether it is positively in the essence and 
nature of things, as a certain school of Britons would seem to think 
it, that a Capital must be ensnared and enslaved before it can be 
made beautiful; wdien I lifted up my eyes, and found that my feet, 
straying like my mind, had brought me to hfotre-Dame. 

That is to say, Notre Dame was before me, but there was a large 
open space between us. A very little while gone, 1 had left that 
space covered with buildings densely crowded; and now it was 
cleared for some new wonder in the way of public Street, Place, 
Garden, Fountain, or all four. Only the obscene little Morgue, 
slinking on the brink of the river, and soon to come down, was left 
there, looking mortally ashamed of itself, and supremely wicked. 
1 had but glanced at this old acquaintance; when 1 beheld an airy 
procession coming round in front of Notre-Dame, past the great 
hospital. It had something of a Masaniello look, with flulteriug 
striped curtains in the midst of it, and it came dancing round the 
cathedral in the liveliest manner. 

1 was speculating on a marriage in Blouse-life, or a Christening, 
or soirie other domestic festivity which I would see out, when I 
found, from the talk of a quick rush of Blouses past me, that it 
was a Body coming to the Morgue. Having never before chanced 
upon this initiation,! confitituted m 3 ’'self a Blouse likewise, and run 
into the Morgue with the rest. It was a very muddy day, and we 
took iu a quantity of mire with us, and the procession, coming in 
upon our heels, brought a quantity more. The procession was in the 
highest spirits, and coiisisled of idlers who had come with the cur- 
tamed litter from its starting-place, and of all the reinforcements it 
had picked up by the way. It set the litter down in the midst of 
the Morgue, and then two Custodians proclaimed aloud that we 
were all “invited” to go out. This invitation was rendered the 
more pressing, if not the more flattering, by our being shoved out, 
and the folding gates being barred upon ug, 


126 


THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


Tlione who have never seen the Morgue may see it perfectly, by 
presenting to themselves an indifferently-paved coach-house, acces- 
sible from the street by a pair of folding gates; on the left of the 
coach-house, occupying its width, any large London tailor’s or 
liuendraper’s plate-glass window reaching to the ground ; within the 
window, on two rows of inclined planes, what the coach-house hae 
to show; hanging above, like irregular stalactites from tiie roof ot 
a cave, a quantity of clothes — the clothes of the dead-and buried 
shows of the coach-house. 

We had been excited in the highest degree by feeing the Cus- 
todians pull off their coats and tuck up their shirt-sleeves as the 
procession came along. It looked so interestingly like business. 
Shut-out in the muddy street, we now became quite ravenous to 
know all about it. Was it river, pistol, knife, love, gambling, rob- 
bery, hatred, how many stabs, how many bullets, fresh or decom- 
poseX suicide or murder? All wedged together, and all staring at 
one another with our heads thrust forward, we propounded these 
inquiries, and a hundred more such. Imperceptiblv it came to ))e 
known that Monsieur the tall and sallow mason yonder was ac- 
quainted with the facts. Would Monsieur the tall and sallow 
mason, urged at by a new wave of us, have the goodness to im- 
part? It was but a poor old man, passing along the street under 
one of the new buildings, on whom a stone had fallen, and who had 
tumbled dead. His age? Another wave surged up against the tall 
and sallow mason, and our wave swept on and broke, and he was 
any age from sixty-five to ninety. 

An old man was not much: moreover, we could have wished he 
had been killed by human agency — his own, or somebody else’s; 
the latter preferable — but our comfort was that he had nothing about 
him to lead to his identification, and that his people must seek him 
here. Perhaps they were waiting dinner for him even now? We 
liked that. Such of us as had pocket-handkerchiefs took a slow, 
intense, protracted wipe at our noses, and then crammed our hand 
kerchiefs into the breast of our blouses. Others of us who had no 
handkerchiefs administered a similar relief to our overwrought 
minds by means of prolonged smears or wipes of our mouths on our 
sleeves. One man with a gloomy malformation of brow— a 
homicidal worker in white-lead, to judge from his blue tone of 
color, and a certain flavor of paralysis pervading him — got his coat- 
collar between his teeth and bit at it with an appetite. Several 
decent women arrived upon the outskirits of the crowd, and pre- 
pared to launch themselves into the dismal coach-house when oppor- 
tunity should come; among them a pretty young mother, pretend- 
ing to bite the forefinger of her baby boy, kept it between her rosy 
lips that it might be handy for guiding to point at the ‘Show. 
Meantime all faces were turned toward the building, and we men 
waited with a fixed and stern resolution; for the most part with 
folded arms. Surely, it was the only public French sight these un- 
commercial e5’'es had seen, at which the expectant people did not form 
en queue. But there was no such order of arrangement here; nothing 
but a general determination to make a rush for it, and a disposition 
to object to some boys who had mounted on the two stone posts by 


THE UHCOAIMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


m 

the hinges of the gates, with the design of swooping in when the 
hinges should turn. 

Now they turned, and we rushed! Great pressure, and a scream 
or two from the front. Then a laugh or two, some expression of 
disappointment, and a slackening of the pressure and subsidence of 
the struggle. Old man not there. 

“ But what would you have?” the Custodian reasonably argues 
as he looks out at his little door. ” Patience, patience! We 
make his toilet, gentlemen. He will be exposed presently. It is 
necessary to proceed according to rule. His toilet is not made all 
at a blow. He will be exposed in good time, gentlemen, in good 
time.” And so retires, smoking, with a wave of his sleeveless 
arm toward the window, importing, ” Entertain yourselves mean- 
while with the other curiosities. Fortunately the Museum is not 
empty to day.” 

Who would have thought of public fickleness even at the 
Morgue? But there it was on that occasion. Three lately popular 
articles, that had been attracting greatly when the litter was first 
described coming dancing round the corner by the great cathedral, 
were so completely deposed now, that nobodj'’ save two little girls (one 
showing them to a doll) would look at them. Yet the chief of the 
three, the article in the front row, had received jagged injury of 
the left temple; and the other two in the back row, the drowned two 
lying side by side with their heads very slightly turned toward each 
other, seemed to be comparing notes about it. Indeed, those two in 
the back row were so furtive of appearance, and so (in their puffed 
way) assassinatingly knowing as to the one of the front, that it was 
hard to think the three had never come together in their lives, and 
were only chance companions after death. Whether or no this was 
the general, as it was the uncommercial fancy, it is not to be dis- 
puted that the group had drawn exceedingly within ten minutes. 
Yet now the inconstant public turned its back upon them, and even 
leaned its elbows carelessly against the bar outside the window, 
and shook off' the mud from its shoes, and also lent and borrowed 
fire for pipes. 

Custodian re-enters from his door. “ Again once, gentlemen, 

you are invited ” No further invitation necessary. Ready dasii 

into the street. Toilet finished. Old man coming out. 

This- time, the interest was grown too hot to admit of tolera- 
tion of the boys on the stone posts. The homicidal white-lead 
worker made a pounce upon one boy who was hoisting himself up, 
and brought him to earth amidst general commendation. Closely 
stowed as we were, we yet formed into groups — groups of conver- 
sation, without separation from the mass — to discuss the old man. 
Rivals of the tall and sallow mason sprang into being, and here, 
again, was popular inconstancy. These rivals attracted audiences, 
and were greedily listened to; and whereas they had derived their 
information solely from the tall and sallow one, officious members 
of the crowd now sought to enlighten Jiim on their authority. 
Changed by this social experience into an iron-visaged and inveter- 
ate misanthrope, the mason glared at mankind, and evidently cher- 
ished in his breast the wish that the whole of the present company 
could change places with the deceased old man. And now listeners 


128 


THE HKCOHMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

became inattentive, and people made a start forward at a slight 
sound, and an unholy tire kindled in the public eye, and those next 
the gates beat at them impatiently, as if they were of the cannibal 
species and hungry. 

Again the hinges creaked, and we rushed. Disorderly pressure 
for some time ensued before the uncommercial unit got figured into 
the front row of the sura. It was strange to see so much heat and 
uproar seething about one poor spare white-haired old man, quiet 
for evermore. He was calm of feature and unoisfigured, as he lay on 
his back— having been struck upon the hindernart of the head, and 
thrown forward— and something like a tear or two had started from 
tlie closed eyes, and lay wet upon the face. The uncommercial in- 
terest, sated at a glance, directed itself upon the striving crowd 
on either side and behind: wondering whether one might have 
guessed, from the expression of tliose faces merely, what kind of 
sight they were looking at. ^ The differences of expression were not 
many. There was a little pity, but not much, and that mostly with 
a selfish touch in it— as who wmuld say, “ Shall I, poor 1, look like 
that when the time comes?” There was more of a secretly-brood- 
ing contemplation and curiosity, as, ” That man 1 don’t like, and 
liavm the grudge against; would such be his appearance, if some one 
—not to mention names— by any chance gave him an ugly knock?” 
There was a wolfish stare at the object, in which the homicidal 
white-lead wmrker shone conspicuous. And there was a much more 
general, purposeless, vacant staring at it— like looking at wax-wmrk 
without a catalogue, and not knowing what to make "of it. But all 
these expressions concurred in possessing the one underlying ex- 
pression of looking at something that could not return a look. " The 
uncommercial notice had established this as very remarkable,' when 
a new pressure all at once coming up from the street pinioned him 
ignominiously, and hurried him into the arms (now sleeved again) 
of the Custodian smoking at his door, and answering questions, be- 
tween puffs, with a certain placid meritorious air of not beino- 
proud, though high in office. And, mentioning pride it may lie 
observed, by the way, that one could not well help investing tlie 
oiiginal ®olc occupant of the front row with an air depreciatory 
of the legitimate attraction of the poor old man: while the two in the 
second row seemed to exult at his superseded popularity. 

Pacing presently round the garden of the Tower of St. Jacques 
de la Boucherie, and presently again in front of the Hotel de Ville 
I called to mind a certain desolate open-air Morgue that 1 happened 
to light upon in London, one day in the hard winter of 1861 and 
which seemed as strange to me,rH the time of seeing it ,as if I liad found 
It in China. Toward that hour of a winter’s afternoon when the 
himp- lighters are beginning to light the lamps in the streets a Jittle 
before they ^e wgnted. because the darkness thickens fast and soon 
1 was wallving in from the country on the northern side of the 
Kegent s Park hard frozen and deserted— when 1 saw anemutv 
Hansom cab drive up to the lodge at Gloucester Gate, and the driver 
with great agitation call to the man there: who quickly reached a 
long pole irom a tree, and, deftly collared by the driver, jumped to 
the step of his little seat, and so the Hansom rattled out at the gate 
galloping over the iron-bound road. I followed running, though 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRATELER. 


129 


':iot SO fast .but that when I came to the right-hand Canal Bridge, 
near the cross-path to Chalk Farm, tlie Hansom was slationary, the 
horse was smoking hot, the long pole was idle on the ground, and 
the driver and the park-keeper were looking over the bridge parapet. 
-Looking over, too, I saw, lying on the towing-path, wiih her face 
turned up toward us, a woman, dead a day or two, and under thirty, 
as I guessed, poorly dressed in black. The feet were lightly crossed 
at the ankles, and the dark hair, all pushed back from the face, as - 
though tiiat had been the last action of her desperale hands, 
streamed over the ground. Dabbled all about her were the water 
and the broken ice that had dropped from her dress, and had splashed 
as she was got out. The policeman who had just got her out, and 
the passing costermonger who had helped him, were standing near 
the body; the latter with that stare at it which 1 have likened to 
being at. a wax- work exhibition wdthout a catalogue; the former 
looking over his stock, with professional stiffness and coolness, in 
the direction in which the bearers he had sent for were expected. 

So dreadfully forlorn, so dreadfully sad, so dreadfully mysterious, the 
spectacle of our dear sister here departed! A barge came up, break- 
ing the floating ice and the silence, and a woman steered it. The 
man with the horse that towed it cared so little for the body that the - 
stumbling hoofs had been among the hair, and the tow-rope had 
eaught and turned the head, before our cry of horror took him to the 
bridle. At which sound the steering woman looked up at us on the 
bridge with contempt unutterable, and then looking down at the body 
with a similar expression — as if it were made in another likeness from 
herself, had been informed with other passions, had been lost by 
other chances, had had another nature dragged down to perdition — 
steered a spurning sireak of mud at it, and passed on. 

A better experience, but also of the Morgue kind, in which 
chance happily made me useful in a slight degree, arose to my re- 
membrance as* I took my way by the Boulevard de bebastapol to the 
brighter scenes of Paris. 

The thing happened, say, five-and-twenty 3 ’-ears ago. 1 was a 
modest young uncommercial then, and timid and inexperienced. 
Many suns and winds have browned me in the line, but those w'ere 
my pale days. Having newly taken the lease of a house in a cer- 
tain distinguished metropolitan parish — a house which then appeared 
to me to be a frightfully first class Family Mansion, involving awful 
-responsibilities — 1 became the prey of a Beadle. I think the. Beadle 
must have seen me going in or coming out, and must have observed 
that 1 tottered under the weight of my grandeur. Or he may have _ 
been hiding under straw when 1 bought my first horse (in the 
desirable stable-yard attached to the first-class Family Mansion), 
-and when the vender remarked to me, in an original manner, on 
bringing him for approval, taking his cloth off and smacking him. 

There, sirl There's, a Orse!” And when 1 said gallantly, “ How 
much do you want for him?” and when the vender said. ” No more 
than sixty guineas from you;” and when 1 said smartly, “ Why 
not more than sixty from me” And when he said, cnishingly, “ Be- - 
cause, upon my soul and body, he’d he considered cheap at seventy 
by one who understood the subject — but you don’t. ” 1 say, the Beadle 
may have been in hiding under the straw when this disgrace befell 

5 


130 


THE UHCGMMEECIAL TKAVELER. 


me, or he may have noted that I was too raw and yonns an Atlas to 
carry the first-class Family Mansion in a knowino; manner. Be 
this as it may, the Beadle did what Melancholy did to the 5 0 uth in 
Gray’s “Elegy” — he marked, me for his own. And the way in 
which the Beadle did it was this: he summoned me as a jLir 3 'rnan 
on his Coroner’s Inquests. 

In my first feverisli alarm I repaired “for safety and for suc- 
cor” — like those sagacious Northern shepherds who, having had no 
previous reason whatever to believe in j'oung Norval. very pru- 
dently did not originate the hazarduous idea ot believing in him — 
to a deep householder. This profound man informed me that the 
Beadle counted on my buying him off; on my bribing him not to 
summon me; and that if I would attend an Inquest with a cheerful 
countenance, and profess alacrity in that branch of my country’s 
service, the Beadle would be disliearlened, and would give up the 
game. 

1 roused my energies, and, the next time the wily Beadle sum- 
moned me, 1 went. The Beadle was the blankest Beadle 1 have 
ever looked on when 1 answered to my name, and his discomfiture 
gave me courage to go through with it. 

We were empaneled to inquire concerning the death of a very 
little mite of a child. It was the old miserable story. Whether the 
mother had committed the minor offense of concealing tlie birth, or 
whether she had committed the major offense of killing the child, 
was the question on which we were wanted. We must commit her 
on one of the two issues. 

The Inquest came off in the parish workhouse, and I have yet a 
lively impression that I w'as unanimously received by my brother 
Jurymen as a brother of the utmost conceivable insignificance. 
Also that, before we began, a broker who had lately cheated me 
fearfully in the matter of a pair of card- tables, was for the utmost 
rigor of the law. ] remem])er that we sat in a sort of board-room, 
on such very large square horsehair chairs that I wmndered what 
race of Patagonians they were made for; and further, that an un- 
dertaker gave me his card vdien wew’ere in the full moral freshness 
of having just been sworn, an “ an inhabitant that was newly come 
into the parish, and was likely to have a young family.” The case 
was then stated to us by the Coroner, and then we went down stairs 
— led by the plotting Beadle — to view the body. From that da.y to 
this, the poor little figure, on which that sounding legal appellation 
was bestowed, has lain in the same place, and with tlie same sur- 
roundings, to my thinking. In a kind of crypt devoted to the ware- 
housing of the parochial coffins, and in the midst of a perfect 
Panorama of coffins of all sizes, it was stretched on a box; the 
mother had put it in her box — this box— almost as soon as it w^as 
born, and it had been presently found there. It had been opened, 
and neatly sewn up, and, regarded from that point of view, it looked 
like a stuffed creature. It rested on a clean white cloth, with a 
surgical instrument or so at hand, and, regarded from that point of 
view, it looked as if the cloth were “laid,” and the Giant were 
coming to dinner. There was nothing repellent about the poor 
piece ot innocence, and it demanded a mere form of looking at. 
So, we looked at an old pauper who was going about among the 


THE UK COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


131 

-coffins Mfith a foot-rule, as if he were a case of Self-Measurement; 
and we looked at one another; and we said the place was well 
whitewashed anyhow; and then our conversational powers as a 
British Jury flagged, and the foreman said, “ All right, gentlemen? 
Back again, Mr. Beadle!” 

The miserable young creature who had given birth to this 
child within a very few days, and who had cleaned the cold wet - 
door-steps immediately afterward, was brought before us when we 
resumed our horsehair chairs, and was present during the procecid- 
ings. She bad a horsehair chair herself, being very weak and ill; 
and 1 remember how she turned to the unsympathetic nurse wlio_ 
attended her, and who might have been tlui figure-head of a pauper” 
ship, and how she hid her face and sobs and tears upon that wooden 
shoulder. I remember, too, how hard lier mistiess was upon her 
(she was a servant-of-all-work), and with what a cruel pertinacity 
that piece of Virtue spun her thread of evidence double, by inter- 
twisting it with the sternest thread of construction. Smil ten hard 
by the terrible low wail from the utterly friendless orphan girl, 
which never ceased during the whole inquir 3 % I took heart to ask 
this witness a question or two, which hopefully admitted of an an- 
swer that might give a favorable turn to the case. She made the 
turn as little favorable as it could be, but it did some good, and the 
Coroner, who was nobly patient and humane (he was the late 
Mr. AVakely), cast a look of strong encouragement in my direction. 
Then we had the doctor who had made the examination, and the 
usual tests as to whether the child was born alive; but he w^as a 
timid, muddle-headed doctor, and got confused and contradictory, " 
and wotrldn’t say this, and couldn’t answer for that, and the im- 
maculate broker was too much for him, and our side slid back again. 
However, I tried again, and the Coroner backed me again, for - 
which I ever afterward felt grateful to him, as 1 do now to his 
memory; and we got another favorable turn out of some other wit- 
ness, some member of the family with a strong prepossession against 
the sinner; and I think we had the doctor back again; and 1 know 
that the Coroner summed up for our side, and that 1 and my 
British brothers turned round to discuss our verdict, and get our- - 
selves into great 4iffi'^ulties with our large chairs and the bioker. 
At that stage of the case 1 tried hard again, being convinced that 1 
had cause for it; and at last we found for the minor offense of only 
concealing the birth; and the poor desolate creature, who had been 
taken out during our deliberation, being brought in aaain to be told 
of the verdict, then dropped upon her knees before us, with pro- - 
testations that we were right-— protestations among the most affect- 
ing that 1 have ever heard in my life — and was carried awa}-^ insensi- 
ble. 

(In private conversation after this was all over, the Coroner 
showed me his reasons, as a trained surgeon, for perceiving it to be 
impossible that the child could under the most favorable circum- 
stances, have drawn many breaths, in the very doubtful case of its 
having ever breathed at all; this, owing to the discovery of some 
foreign matter in the windpipe, quite irreconcilable wilh many mo- 
ments of life.) 

When the agonized girl had made those final protestations, 1 had 


« ' 


/ 

132 THE UNCOMMEKCIAL TEAVELER. 

seen her face, and it was in unison with her distracted heart- 
broken voice, and it was very moving!:. It certainly did not impress 
me by any beauty that it had, and if 1 ever see it ai^ain in another 
world I shall only know it by the help of some new sense of intelli- 
gence. But it came to me in my sleep that night, and 1 selfishly 
dismissed it in the most efficient way I could think of. I caused 
some extra care to be taken of her in prison, and counsel to be re- 
tained for her defense when she was tried at the Old Bailey; and 
her sentence was lenient, and her history and conduct proved that 
it was right. In doing the little I did for her, I remember to have- 
had the kind help of some gentle-hearted functionary to whom I 
addressed myself — but what functionary 1 have long-forgotten — 
who 1 suppose was officially present at the Inquest. 

I regard this as a very notable uncommercial experience, because 
this good came of a Beadle. And, to the best of my knowledge, in- 
formation, and belief, it is the only good that ever did come of s. 
Beadle since the first Beadle put on his cocked-hat. 


XIX. 

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS. 

It came into my mind that I would recall in these notes a few of 
the many hostelries 1 have rested at in the course of my journeys; 
and. indeed, I had taken up my pen for the purpose, when I was 
baffled by an accidental circumstance. It was the having to leave 
off, to wish the owner of a certain bright face that looked in at uiy 
door “ man}'^ bappy returns of the day,” -Thereupon a new thought 
came int(> my mind, driving its predecessor out, and 1 began to re- 
call — instead of Inns— the birthdays that 1 have put up at, on my 
way to this present sheet of paper, 

' I can very well remember being taken out to visit some peach- 
faced creature in a blue sash, and shoes to correspond, whose life I 
supposed to consist entirely of birthd-ays. Upon seed-cake, sweet 
wine, and shining presents, that glorified young person seemed to 
me to be exclusively reared. At so early a stage of my travels did 
1 assist at the anniversary of her nativity (and become enamored of 
her), that 1 had not yet acquired the recondite knowledge that a 
birthday is the common property of all who are born, but supposed 
it to be a special gift bestowed by the favoring Heavens on- that 
one distinguished infant. There was no other company, and we 
sat in a shady bower— under a table, as my better (or worse) knowl- 
edge leads me to believe — and were regaled wiih saccharine sub- 
stances and liquids, until it was time to part. A bitter powder was- 
administered to me next morning, and 1 was wielched. On the 
whole, a pretty accurate foreshadowing of my more mature experi- 
ences in such wise! 

Then came the time when, inseparable from one’s own birthday, 
was a certain sense of merit, a consciousness of well-earned distinc- 
tion, When 1 regarded my birthday as a graceful achievement of 
my own, a monument of my perseverance, independence, and good 
sense, redounding greatly to my honor. This was at about the- 
period when Olympia Squires became involved in the anniversary. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 133 

Olympia was most beautifivl (of course), and I loved her to that de- 
gree, that 1 used to be obliged .to get out of my little bed in the 
night, expressly to exclaim to Solitude, “ Oh, Olympia Squires!” 
Visions of Olympia, clothed entirely in sage-gfeen, from which 1 
infer a defectively-educated taste on the part of her respected par- 
ents. who were necessarily unacquainted with the South Kensing- 
ton Museum, still arise before me. Truth is sacred, and the visions 
are crowned by a shining white beaver bonnet, impossibly sugges- 
tive of a little feminine post-boy. My memory presents a birtliday 
when Olympia and I were taken by an unfeeling relative— some 
cruel uncle, or the like— to a slow torture called an Orrery. This 
terrible instrument was set up at the local Theater, and I had ex- 
pressed a profane wish in the morning that it was a Play: for 
which a serious aunt had probed my conscience deep, and my pock- 
et deeper, b.y reclaiming a bestowed half-crown. It was a venerable 
and a shabby Orrery, at least one thousand stars and twenty-five 
cornets behind the age. Nevertheless, it was awful. When the 
low-spirited gentleman with a wand said, ” Ladies and gentlemen” 
(meaning particularly Olympia and me), ” the lights are about to 
be put out, but there is not the slightest cause for alarm,” it was 
very alarming. Then the planets and stars began. Sometimes they 
wouldn’t come on, sometimes they wouldn’t go off, sometimes they 
had holes in them, and mostly they didn’t seem to be good like- 
nesses, All this time the gentleman with the wand wis going on in 
the dark (tapping away at the heavenly bodies between-whiles, like 
a wearisome woodpecker) about a sphere, revolving on its own axis 
eight hundred and ninety-seven thousand millions of times — or 
miles— in two hundred and sixty-three thousand five hundred and 
twenty-four millions of something elses, until 1 thought, if this was 
a birthday, it were better never to have been born. Olympia, also, 
became much depressed, and we both slumbered and woke cross, 
and still the gentleman was going on in the dark — whether up in 
the stars, or down on the stage, it would have been hard to make 
out, if it had been worth trying — ciphering away about planes of 
orbits, to such an infamous extent that Olympia, stung to madness, 
actually kicked mo. A pretty birthday spectacle, when the lights 
were turried up again, and all the schools in the town (including 
the National, who had come in for nothing, and serve them right, 
for they were always throwing stones) were discovered with ex- 
hausted countenances, screwing their knuckles into their eyes, or 
clutching their heads of hair. A pretty birthday speech when 
Doctor Sleek of the City Free bobbed up his powdered head in the 
stage box, and said that before this assembly dispersed he really 
must beg to express his entire approval of a lecture as improving, 
as informing, as devoid of anything that could call a blush into the 
cheek of youth, as any it had ever been his lot to hear delivered. A 
pretty birthday altogether, when Astronomy couldn’t leave poor 
Small Olympia Squires and me alone, but must put an end to our 
loves! For we never got over it; the threadbare Orrery outwore our 
mutual tenderness: the man with the wand was too much for the 
boy with the bow. 

When shall I disconnect the combined smells of oranges, brown 
paper, and straw, from those other birthdays at school, when the 


134 


THE UKCOMMERCIxVL TRAVELER. 


coming hamper casts its shadow before, and when a week of social 
harmony— shall I add of admiring and affectionate popularity?— led 
up to that Institution? What noble sentiments were expressed to 
me in the days before the hamper, what vows of friendship were 
sworn to me, what exceedingly old knives were given me, what 
generous avowals of having been in the wrong emanated from else 
obstinate spirits once enrotled among my enemies! The birthday 
of the potted game and guava jelly is still made special to me by the 
noble conduct of Bully Globson. Letters from home had mysteri- 
ously inquired whether I should be piuch surprised and disappoint- 
ed if, among the treasures in the coming hamper, I discovered potted 
game, and guava jelly from the Western Indies. 1 had mentioned 
those hints in confidence to a few friends, and had promised to give 
uway, as 1 now see reason to believe, a handsome covey of partridges 
potted, and about a hundredweight of guava jelly. It was now that 
Globson, Bully no more, sought me out in the playground. He 
was a big fat boy, with a big fat head and a big fat fist, and, at the 
beginning of that Half, had raised such a bump on my forehead 
that I couldn’t get my hat of state on, to go to church. He said 
that after an interval of cool refiection (four months), he now felt 
this blow to have been an error of judgment, and that he wished to 
apologize for the same. Not only that, but, holding down his big 
head between his two big hands in order that I might reach it con- 
veniently, he requested me, as an act of justice which would ap- 
pease his awakened conscience, to raise a retributive bump upon it, 
in the presence of witnesses. This handsome proposal 1 modestly 
declined, and he then embraced me, and we walked away convers- 
ing. We conversed respecting the West India Islands, and, in the 
pursuit of knowledge, he asked me with much interest whether, in 
the course of my reading, 1 had met with any reliable description 
of the mode of manufacturing guava jelly; or whether I had ever 
happened to taste that conserve, which he had been given to under- 
stand was of rare excellence. 

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty; and then with the weaning 
months came an ever-augmenting sense of the dignity of twenty-one. 
Heaven knows I had nothing to “ come into,” save the bare birth- 
day, and yet I esteemed it as a great possession. I now and then 
paved the w^ay to my state of dignity by beginning a proposition 
with the casual words, ” say that a man of twenty-one,” or by the 
incidental assumption of a fact that could not sanely be disputed, 
as, ” for when a fellow comes to be a man of twenty-one.” I gave 
a party on the occasion. She was there. It is unnecessary to name 
Her more particularly; she was older than 1, and had pervaded 
every chink and crevice of my mind for three or four years. I had 
held volumes of Imaginary (Conversations with her mother on the 
subject of our union, and I had written letters more in number than 
Horace Walpole’s, to that discreet woman, soliciting her daughter’s 
hand in marriage. 1 had never had the remotest intention of send- 
ing any of those letters; but lo write them, and after a few days 
tear them up, had been a sublime occuptition. Sometimes 1 had 
begun, “ Honored Madam. I think that a lady gifted with those 
powers of observation which I know you to possess, and endowed 
with those womanly sympathies with the young and ardent which 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


135 


ic were more than heresy to doubt, can scarcely have failed to dis- 
cover that 1 love your adorable daughter deeply, devotedly.” In 
less buoyant states of mind 1 had begun, ” Bear with me. Dear 
Madam, bear with a daring wrelch who is about to make a surprising 
confession to you, wholly unanticipated by yourself, and which he 
beseeches you to commit to the flames as soon as you have become 
aware to wdiat a towering height his mad ambition soars.” At other 
times— periods of profound mental depression, when She had gone 
out to balls where I was not — the draft took the affecting form of a 
paper to be left on my table after my departure to the confines of 
the globe. As thus: ” For Mrs. Onowenever, these lines wdien the 
hand that traces them shall be far away. I could not bear the daily 
torture of hopelessly loving the dear one wdiom I will not name. 
Broiling on the coast of Africa, or congealing on the shores of 
Greenland, 1 am far, far better there than here.” (In this sentiment 
my cooler judgment perceives that the family of the beloved object 
would have most completely concurred.) “If I ever emerge from 
obscurity, and my name is ever heralded by Fame, it will be for her 
dear sake. If I ever amass Gold, it will be to pour it at her feet. 

Should I, on the other hand, become the prey of Eavens ” I 

doubt if I ever quite made up my mind what was to be done in that 
affecting case; I tried ” then it is better so;” but, not feeling con- 
vinced that it would be better so, I vacillated between leaving all 
else blank, which looked expressive and bleak, or winding up with 
” Farew’^ell!” 

This fictitious correspondence of mine is to blame for the fore- 
going digression. I was about to pursue the statement that on my 
twenty-first birthday 1 gave a party, and She was there. It was a 
beautiful party. There w^as not a single animate or inanimate ob- 
ject connected with it (except the company and myself) that I had 
ever seen before. Everything was hired, and the mercenaries in 
attendance were profound strangers to me. Behind a door, in the 
crumby part of the' night when wine-glasses ivere to be found in 
unexpected spots, 1 spoke to Her — spoke out to Her. What passed 
I cannot, as a man of honor, reveal. She was all angelical gentle- 
ness, but a word was mentioned— -a short and dfeadful word of three 
letters, beginning with a B — which, as I remarked at the moment, 
” scorched my brain.” She went away soon afterward, and when 
the hollow throng (though to be sure it was no fault of theirs) dis- 
persed, 1 issued forth with a dissipated scorner, and, as T mentioned 
expressly to him, ” sought oblivion.” It was found, with a dread- 
ful headache in it, but it didn’t last, for, in the shaming light of 
next day’s noon, 1 raised my heavy head in bed, looking back to 
the birthda 3^8 behind me, and tracking the circle by which I had 
got round, after all, to the bitter powder and (he wretchedness again. 

This reactionary powder (taken so largely by the human race that 
1 am inclined to regard it as the Universal Medicine once sought for 
in Laboratories) is capable of being made up in another form for 
birthday use. Anybody’s long-lost brother will do ill to turn up on 
a birthday. If I had a long-lost brother, I should know before- 
hand that he would prove a tremendous fraternal failure if he ap- 

£ ointed to rush into my arms on my birlhday. The first Magic 
lantern I ever saw was secretly and elaborately planned to be the 


136 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

great effect ot a very juvenile birthday; but it wouldn’t act, and its 
images were dim. My experience of adult birthday Magic Lanterns 
may possibly have been unfortunate, but has certainly been siniilar. 
1 have an iliustrative birthday in my eye: a birthday of my friend 
Fllpfleld, whose birthdays had long been remarkable as social suc- 
cesses. There had been nothing set or formal about them; Flip- 
field having been accustomed merely to say, two or three days be- 
fore, “ Don’t forget to come and dine, old boy, according to cus- 
tom’” I don’t know what he said to the ladies he invited, but I 
may safely assume it not to have been ” old girl.” Those were de- 
lightful gatherings, and were enjoyed by all piirticipators. In an 
evil hour, a long-lost brother of Flipfield’s came to light in foreign 
parts. "Where he had been hidden, or what he had been doing, 1 
don’t know, for Flipfield vaguely informed me that he had turned 
up ” on the banks of the Ganges ’’—speaking of him as if he had 
been washed ashore. The Long-lost was coming home, and Flip- 
field made an unfortunate calculation, based on the well-known 
regularity of the P. and O. steamers, that matters might be so con- 
trived as that the Long-lost should appear in the nick of time on 
his (Flipfield’s) birthday. Delicacy commanded that I should re- 
press the gloomy anticipations with which rny soul became fraught 
when 1 heard of this plan. The fatal da}’' arrived, and we assem- 
bled in force. Mrs. Flipfield senior formed an interesting feature 
in the group, with a blue- veined miniature of the late Mr. Flipfield 
round her neck, in an oval, resembling a tart from the pastry- 
cook’s: his hair powdered, and the bright buttons on his coat evi- 
dently verj’^ like. She was accompanied by Miss Flipfield the eld- 
est of her numerous family, who held lier pocket-handkerchief to 
her bosom in a majestic manner, and spoke to all of us (none of us 
had ever seen her before) in pious and condoning tones, of all the 
quarrels that had taken place in the family from her infancy — 
which must have been a long time ago— down to that hour. The 
Long-lost did not appear. Dinner, half an hour later than usual, 
was announced, and still no Long-lost. "We sat down to table. The 
knife and fork of the Long-Lost made a vacuum in Nature, and, 
when the champagne came round for the first time, Flipfield gave 
him up for the day, and had them removed. It was then that the 
Long-lost gained the height of his popularity with the company; 
for my own part, I felt convinced that I loved him dearly. Flip- 
field’s dinners are perfect, and he is the easiest and best of enter- 
tainers. Dinner went on brilliantly, and the more the Long-lost 
didn’t come, the more comfortable we grew, and the more highly 
we thought of him. Flipfield’s own man (who has a regard for me) 
was in the act of struggling with an ignorant stipendiary, to wrest 
from him the wooden leg of a guinea-fowl which he was pressing 
on my acceptance, and to substitute a slice of the breast, when a 
ringing at the door-bell suspended the strife. 1 looked round me, 
and perceived the sudden pallor which I knew my own visage re- 
vealed, reflected on the faces of the company. Flipfield hurriedly 
excused himself, went out, was absent for about a minute or two, 
and then re-entered* with the Long-lost. 

I beg to say distinctly that if the stranger had brought IMont Blanc 
with him, or had come attended by a retinue of eternal snows, he 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 137 

could not have chilled the circle to the raairow in a more efficient 
manner. Embodied failure sat enthroned upon the Lonjr-Jost’s 
brow, and pervaded him to his Long-lost boots. In vain Mrs. Flip- 
field senior, opening her arms, exclaimed, “ My Tom!’' and pressed 
his nose against the counterfeit presentment of his other parent. In 
vain Miss Flipfield, in the first transports of this reunion, showed 
him a dint upon her maidenly cheek, and asked him if he remem- 
bel’ed when he did that with the bellows? We, the bystanders, were 
overcome, but overcome by the palpable, undisguisable, utter, and 
total break-down of the Long-lost. Nothing he could have done 
would have set him right with us but his instant return to the 
Ganges. In the very same moments it became established that the 
feeling was reciprocal, and that the Long-lost detested us. When a 
friend of the family (not myself, upon my honor), wishing to set 
things going again, asked him, while he partook of soup — asked 
him with an amiability of intention beyond all praise, but with a 
weakness of execution open to defeat — what kind of river he con,- 
sidered the (Ganges, the Long-lost, scowling at the friend of the 
family over his spoon, as one of an abhorrent race, replied, “ Why, 
a river of water, I suppose,” and spooned his soup into himself with 
a malignanc}'^ of hand and eye that blighted the amiable questioner. 
Not an opinion could be elicited from the Long-lost in unison with 
the sentiments of any individual present. He contradicted Flipfield 
dead before he had eaten his salmon. He had no idea— or affected 
to have no idea — that it was his brother’s birthday, and, on the 
communication of that interesting fact to him, merely wanted to 
make him out four years older than he was. He was an antipa- 
thetical being, with a peculiar power and gift of treading on every- 
body’s tenderest place. They talk in America of a man’s ” Plat- 
form.” I should describe the Platform of the Long-lost as a Plat ■ 
form composed of other people’s corns, on which he had stumped 
his way, with all his might and main, to his present position. It is 
needless to add that Flipfield’s great birthday went by the board, 
and that he was a wreck when I pretended, at parting, to wish him 
many happy returns of it. 

There is another class of birthdays at which I have so frequently 
assisted, that I may assume such birthdays to be pretty well known 
to the human race. My friend Mayday’s birthday is an example. 
The guests have no knowdedge of one another except on that one day 
in the year, and are annually terrified for a week by the prospect of 
meeting one another again. There is a fiction among us that we have 
uncommon reasons for being particularly lively and spirited on the 
occasion, whereas deep despondency is no phrase for the expression 
of our feelings. But the wonderful feature of the case is, that we 
are in tacit accordance to avoid the subject— to keep it as far ofif as 
possible, as long as possible — and to talk about anything else rather 
than the joyful event. 1 may even go so far as to assert that there 
is a dumb compact among us that we will pretend that it is not 
Mayday’s birthday. A mysterious and gloomy Being, who is said 
to have gone to school with Mayday, and who is so lank and lean 
that he seriously impugns the Dietary of the establishment at which 
they were jointly educated, always leads us, as I may say, to the 
block, by laying his grisly hand on a decanter, and begging us to fill 


138 


THIi UXCOMMEIICIAL TKAVELEK. 


our glasses. The devices and pretenses that I have seen put in prac- 
tice to defer the fatal moment, and to interpose between this man 
and his purpose, are innumerable. I have known desperate guests, 
when they saw the grisly hand approaching the decanter, wildly to 

begin, without any antecedent whatsoever, “ That reminds me ” 

and to plunge into long stories. When at last the hand and the de- 
canter come together, a shudder, a palpable, perceptible shudder, 
goes round the table. We receive the reminder that it was May- 
da 3 '^’s birthday, as if it were the anniversary of some profound dis- 
grace he had undergone, and we sought to comfort him. And. when 
we have drunk Mayday’s health, and wished him many happy re- 
turns, we are seized for some moments with a ghastly blilheness, 
an unnatural levity, as if we were in the first flushed reaction of 
having undergone a surgical operation. 

Birthdays of this species have a public as well as a private phase. 
My “ boyhood’s home,” Dullborough, presents a case in point. An 
Inimortal Somebody was wanted in Dullborough to dimple for a day 
the stagnant face of the waters; he w'as rather wanted by Dull- 
borough generally, and much w^anted by the principal hotel-keeper. 
The County history was looked up for a locally Immortal Some- 
body', but the registered Dullborough worthies were.all Nobodies. 
In this stage of things, it is hardly necessary to record that Dull- 
borough did what every man does when he wants to write a book or 
deliver a lecture, and is provided with all the materials exce'pt a 
subject. It fell back upon Shakespeare. 

No sooner w^as it resolved to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday in 
Dullborough than the popularity of the immortal bard became sur- 
prising. You might have supposed the first edition of his works to ' 
have been published last week, and enthusiastic Dullborough to 
have got half through them. (1 doubt, by the way, whether it had 
ever donedialf that, but this is a private opinion.) A young gen- 
tleman with a sonnet, the retention of which for two years had en- 
feebled his mind and undermined his knees, got the sonnet into the _ 
Dullborough Warden, and gained flesh. Portraits of Shakespeare 
broke out in the book-shop windows, and our principal artist 
painted a large original portrait in oils for the decoration of the din- 
ing-room. It was not in the least like any of the other portraits, 
and w^as exceedingly admired, the head being much swollen. At 
the Institution, the Debating Society discussed the new question, - 
Was there sufficient ground for supposing that the Immortal Shake- 
speare ever stole deer? This was indignantly decided by an over- 
whelming majority in the negative; indeed there wms but one vote - 
on the Poaching side, and that was the vote of the orator who had 
unctertaken to advocate it, and who became quite an obnoxious 
character — particularly to the Dullborough “roughs,” who were 
about as well informed on the matter as most other people. Distin- 
guished speakers were invited down, and very nearly came (but not 
quit(^. Subscriptions were opened, and committees sat, and it 
would have been far from a popular measure, in the height of the 
excitement, to have told Dullborough that it w’asn't Stratford-upon- 
Avon. Yet, after all these preparations, when the great festivity 
took place, and the portrait, elevated aloft, surveyed the company 
as if it were in danger of springing a mine of intellect and blowing 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 139 

itself up, it did undoubtedly happen, according to the inscrutable 
mysteries of things, that nobody could be induced, not to say to 
touch upon Shakespeare, but to come within a lile of him, until the 
crack speaker of Dullborough rose to propose die immortal memory. 

- Which he did with the perplexing and astonishing result that before 
he had repeated the great name half a dozen times, or had been upon 
his legs as many minutes, he was assailed with a general shout of 

- “Question.” 


^ XX. 

BOUND FOR THE GREAT SALT LAKE. 

Behold me on my way to an Emigrant Ship, on a hot morning 
early in June. My road lies through that part of London generally 
known to the initiated as “ Down by the Docks.” Down by the 
Docks is home to a good many people— to too man5% if I may judge 
from the overflow of local population in the streets— but my nose 
insinuates that the number to whom it is Sweet Home might be 
easily counted. Down by the Docks is a region 1 would choose as 
my "point of embarkation aboard ship if I were ajr emigrant. It 
would present my intention to me in such a sensible light; it would 
• show me so many things to be run away from. 

Down by the Docks, they eat^the largest oysters, and scatter the 
roughest oyster shells known to the descendants of St. George 
and the Dragon. Down by the Docks, they consume the slimiest 
of shell-fish, which seemed to have been scraped off the copper 
bottoms of ships. Down by the Docks, the vegetables at green- 
grocers’ doors acquire a saline and a scaly look, as if they had 
been crossed with fish and seaweed. 

Down by the Docks, they “ board seamen ” at the eating-houses, 
the public-houses, the slop-shops, the coffee-shops, the tally-shops, 
all kinds of shops nientionable and unmentionable— board them as 
it were, in a piratical sense, making them bleed terribly, and giving 
no quarter. Down by the Docks, the seamen roam in mid -street 
and mid-day, their pockets inside out, and their heads no better. 
Down by the Docks, the daughters of wave-ruling Britannia also 
rove, clad in silken attire, with uncovered tresses streaming in the 
breeze, bandana kerchiefs floating from their shoulders, and crino- 
line not wanting. Down by the Docks, you may hear the Incom- 
parable Joe Jackson sing the Standard of England, with a hornpipe, 
any night; or any day may see at the wax-work, for a penny and no 
waiting, him as killed the policeman at Acton, and suffered for it. 
Down by the Docks you may buy polonies, saveloys, and sausage 
preparations various, if you are not particular what they are made 
of besides seasoning. Down by the Docks, the children of Israel 
creep into any gloomy cribs and entries they can hire, and hang 
slops there— pewter watches, sou’-wester hats, waterproof over- 
alls — “ firtht-rate articleth, Thjack.” Down by the Docks, such 
dealers, exhibiting on a frame a complete nautical suit without the 
refinement of a waxen visage in the hat, present the imaginary 
wearer as drooping at the yard-arm, with his seafaring and earth- 
faring troubles over. Down by the Docks, the placards in the 


140 ' THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVE];ER. 

shops apostrophize the customer, knowing him familiarly 'before- 
hand, as “ Look here, Jack!” ” Here’s your sort, my lad!” “ Try 
our sea-going miy'^d, at two-and-nine!” ” The right kit for the 
British tar!” “ Sliij. ahoy!” ” Splice the main-brace, brother!” 
” Come, cheer up, my lads! “WeVe the best liquors here, And 
you’ll find something new In our wonderful Beer!” Down by the 
Docks, the pawnbroker lends money on Union-Jack pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, on watches, with little ships pitching fore and aft on the 
dial, on telescopes, nautical instruments in cases, and such-like. 
Down by the Docks, the apothecary sets up in business on the 
wu-etchedest scale— chiefly on lint and plaster for the strapping of 
wounds — and with nb bright bottles, and with no little drawers. 
Down by the Docks, the shabby undertaker’s shop will bury you 
for next to nothing, after the Malay or Chinaman has stabbed you 
for nothing at all; so you can hardly hope to make a cheaper end. 
Down by the Docks, anybody drunk will qmirrel with anybody 
drunk or sober, and everj^-body else will have a hand in it, and on 
the shortest notice you may revolve in a whirlpool of red shirts, 
shaggy beards, wild heads of hair, bare tattooed arms, Britannia’s 
daughters, malice, mud, maundering, and madness. Down by the 
Docks, scrapins^ fiddles go in the public-houses all day long, and, 
shrill above their din and all the din, rises the screeching of innu- 
merable parrots brought from foreign parts, who appear to be very 
much astonished by what they find on these native shores of ours. 
Possibly the parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that Down by 
the Docks is the road to the Pacific Ocean, with its lovely islands, 
where the savage girls plait flowers, and the savage boys carve co- 
coa-nut shells, and the grim blind idols muse in their shady groves 
to exactly the same purpose as tlie priests and chiefs. And possibly 
the parrots don’t know, possibly they do, that the noble savage is a 
wearisome impostor wherever he is, and has five hundred thousand 
volumes of indifferent rhyme, and no reason, to answer for. 

Shadwell Church! Pleasant whispers of there being a fresher air 
down the river than down by the Docks go pursuing one another, 
playfully, in and out of the openings in its spiie. Gigantic in the 
basin just beyond the church, looms my JEmigrant Ship: her name, 
the ” Amazon.” Her figure-head is not ^^^sfigured as those beaute- 
ous founders of the race of strong-minded women are fabled to have 
been, for the convenience of drawing the bow; but I sympathize 
with the carver: 

“ A flattering carver who made it his care 
To carve busts as they ought to be — not as they were.” 

My Emigrant Ship lies broadside-on to the wharf. Two great gang- 
ways made of spars and planks connect her with the wharf; and up 
and down these gangways, perpetually crowding to and fro, and in 
and out, like ants, are the Emigrants who are going to sail in my 
Emigrant Ship. Some with cabbages, some with loaves of bread, 
some with cheese and butter, some with milk and beer, some with 
boxes, beds, and bundles, some with babies— nearly all with chil- 
dren — nearly all with brand-new tin cans for their daily allowance 
of water, uncomfortably suggestive of a tin flavor in the drink. To 
and fro, up and down, aboard and ashore, swarming here and there 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


141 


and everywhere, my Emigrants. And still, as the Dock gate swings 
upon its hinges, cabs appear, and carls appear, and vans appear, 
bringing more of my Emigrants, with more cabbages, more loaves, 
more cheese and butter, more milk and beer, more boxes, beds, and 
bundles, more tin cans, and on those shipping investments accumu- 
lated, compound interest of children. 

1 go aboard my Emigrant Ship. I go first to the great Cabin, and 
find it in the usual condition of a cabin at that pass. Perspiring 
landsmen, with loose papers, and witli pens and inkstands, pervade 
it; and the general appearance of things is as if the late Mr. Ama- 
zon’s funeral had just come home from the cemetery, and the dis- 
consolate Mrs. Amazon’s trustees found the affairs in great disorder, 
and were looking high and low for the will. I go out on the poop- 
deck for air, and surveying the emigrants on the deck below (indeed, 
they are crowded all about me up there too), find more pens end 
inkstands in action', and more papers, and interminable complica- 
tion respecting accounts with individuals for tin cans and what not. 
But nobody is in an ill- tern per, nobody is the worse for drink, no- 
body swears an oath or uses a coarse word, nobody appears de- 
pressed, nobody is weeping, and down upon the deck, in every cor- 
ner where it is possible to find a few scjuare feet to kneel, crouch, 
or lie in, people, in every unsuitable attimde for writing, are writing 
letters. 

Now, 1 have seen emigrant ships before this day in June. And 
these people are so strikingly different from all other people in like 
circumstances whom I have ever seen, that I wonder aloud, “ What 
would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be?” 

The vigilant bright face of the weather-browned captain of the 
^‘Amazon ” is at my shoulder, and he says, “ What, indeed? The 
most of these came aboard yesterday evening. They came from 
various parts of England, in small parties that had never seen one 
another before. Yet they had not been a couple of hours on board, 
when they established their own police, made their own regulations, 
and set their own watches at all thehatchw^ays. Before nine o’clock, 
the ship was as orderly and as qutet as a man-of-war.” 

1 looked about me again, and saw the letter-writing going on 
with the most curious composure. Perfectly abstracted in the 
midst of the crowd; while great casks were swinging aloft, and 
being lowered into the hold; while hot agents were hurrying up and 
down, adjusting the interminable accounts; while two hundred 
strangers were searching everywhere for two hun tired other stran- 
gers. and were asking questions about them of two hundred more; 
while the children played up and down all the steps, and in and out 
among all the people’s legs, and were beheld, to the general dismay, 
toppling over all the dangerous places; the letter-writers wrote on 
calmly. On the starboard side of the sldp a grizzled man dictated 
a long letter to another grizzled man in an immense fur cap: which 
letter was of so profound a quality, that it became necessary for the 
amanuensis at intervals to take off his fur cap in both his hands, for 
the ventilation of his brain, and stare at him who dictated, as a man 
of many mysteries who was worth looking at. On the larboard side 
a woman had covered a belaying-pin with a white cloth to make a 
neat desk of it, and was sitting on a little box, writing with the de- 


142 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAYELER. 


liberation of a book-keeper, Down upon her breast on the planks 
of the deck at this woman’s feet, with her head diving in under a 
beam of the bulwarks on that side, as an eligible place of refuge for 
her sheet of paper, n neat and pretty girl WTote for a good hour (she 
fainted at last), only rising to the surface occasionally for a dip of 
ink. Alongside the boat, close to me on the poop-deck, another 
girl, a fresh well-grown conntry-girl, was writing another letter on 
the bare deck. Later in the day, when this self-same boat was 
filled with a choir who sang glees and catches for a long time, one 
of the singers, a girl, sang her part mechanically all the while, and 
wrote a letter in the bottom of the boat while doing so. 

“ A stranger would be puzzled to guess the right name for these 
people, Mr, Uncommercial,” sa 3 "s the captain. 

“ Indeed he would.” 

‘‘ It you hadn’t known, could jmu ever have supposed ?” 

“ How could 1? 1 should have said they were, in their degree,, 
the pick and flower of England.” 

“ So should I,” says the captain. 

“ flow many are they?” 

Eight hundred in round numbers.” 

1 went between-decks, where the families with children swarmed 
in the dark, where unavoidable confusion had been caused by the 
last arrivals, and where the confusion was increased by the little 
preparations for dinner that were going on in each, group. A few 
women, here and there, had got lost, and were laughing at it, and 
asking their way to their own people, or out un deck again. A few 
of the poor children were crying; but otherwise the universal cheer- 
fulness was amazing. “ We shall shake down by to-morrow.” 
” We shall come all right in a day or so.” ” We shall have more 
light at sea.” Such phrases I heard everywhere, as 1 groped my 
way among chests and barrels and beams and unstowed cargo and 
ring-bolts and emigrants, down to the lower deck, and thence up to 
the light of day again, and to my former station. 

Surely, an extraordinary people in their power of self-abstraction. 
All llie former letter-writers were still writing calmly, and many 
more letter-writers had broken out in my absence. A boy with a 
bag of books in his hand, and a slate under his arm, emerged from 
below, concentrated himself in my neighborhood (espying a con- 
venient sky -light for his purpose), and went to work at a sum as if 
he were stone-deaf. A father and mother and several young chil- 
dren, on the main-deck below me, had formed a family circle close 
to the foot of the crowded restless gangway, where the children 
made a nest for themselves in a coil of rope, and the father and 
mother, she suckling the youngest, discussed family affairs as peace- 
ably as if they were in perfect retirement. 1 think the most notice- 
able characteristic in the eight hundred, as a mass, was their exemp- 
tion from hurry. 

Eight hundred what? “ Geese, villain?” Eight Hundred 
Mormons. 1, Uncommercial Traveler for the firm of Human In- 
terest Brothers, had come aboard this Emigrant Ship to see what 
Eight Hundred Latter-day Saints were like, and 1 found them (to 
the rout and overthrow of all my expectations) like what 1 now de- 
scribe with scrupulous exactness. : 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


143 


The Mormon Agent who had been active in getting them together, 
and in making: the contract with my friends the owners of the ship 
to take them as far as New York on their way to the Great Salt 
Lake, was pointed out to me, A compactly-made handsome man 
in black, rather short, with rich brown hair and beard, and clear 
bright eyes. From his speech, I should set him down as American. - 
Probably a man who had “ knocked about the world ” pretty much. 
A man with a frank open manner, and unshrinking look; withal a 
man of great quickness. 1 believe he was wholly ignorant of my 
uncommercial individuality, and consequently of my immense un- 
commercial importance. 

Uncommercial. These are a very fine set of people you have 
brought together here. 

Mormon Agent. Yes, sir, they are a very fine set of people. 

Uncommercial (looking about). Indeed, I think it would be 
difficult to find eight hundred people together anywhere else, and 
find so much beauty and so much strength and capacity for work 
among them. 

Mormon Agent (not looking about, but looking steadily at Un- 
commercial). 1 think so. — We sent out about a thousand more, 
yes’day, from Liverpool. 

Uncommercial. You are not going with these emigrants. 

Mormon Agent. No, sir. 1 remain. 

Uncommercial. But you have been in the Mormon Territory? 

Mormon Agent. Y'es; 1 left Utah about three years ago. 

Uncommercial, It is surprising to me that these people are all so 
cheery, and make so little of the immense distance before I hem. 

Mormon Agent. Well, you see; many of ’em have friends out 
at Utah, and many of ’em look forward to meeting friends on the 
way. 

Uncommercial. On the way? 

Mormon Agent. This way ’tis. This ship lands ’em in New 
York City. Then they go on by rail right away beyond St. Louis, 
to that part of the Banks of the Missouri wliere they strike the 
Plains. There wagons from the settlement meet ’em to bear 
’em company on their journey ’cross — twelve luiiidred miles 
about. Industrious people who come out to the settlement soon 
get wagons of their own, and so the friends of some of these will 
come down in their own wagons to meet ’em. They look forward 
to that greatly. 

Uncommercial. On their long journey across the Desert, do you 
arm them ? 

Mormon Agent. Mostly you will find they have arms of some 
kind or another already with them. Such as had not arms 
we should arm across the Plains for the general protection and de- 
fense. 

Uncommercial. Will these wagons bring down any produce to 
the Missouri? 

Mormon Agent. Well, since the war broke out, we’ve taken to 
growing cotton, and they’ll likely bring down cotton to be ex- 
changed for machinery. We want machinery. Also we have taken 
to grow indigo, which is a fine commodity for profit. It has 


144 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


been found that the climate on the further side of the Great Sal& 
Lake suits well for raising indigo. 

Uncommercial. 1 am told that these people now on board are; 
jirincipally from the South of Enirland? 

Mormon Agent. And from Wales, That’s true. 

Uncommercial. Do you get many Scotch? 

Mormon Agent. Not many. 

Uncommercial. Highlanders, for instance. 

Mormon Agent. No, not Highlanders. They ain’t interested 
enough in universal brotherhood and peace and good-will. 

Uncommercial. The old fighting blood is strong in them? 

Mormon Agent. Well, yes. And besides, they’ve no faith. 

Uncommercial (who was been burning to get at the Prophet Joe 
Smith, and seems to discover an opening). Faith in 

Mormon Agent (far too many for Uncommercial). Well.— In 
anything. 

Similarly, on this same head, the Uncommercial underwent dis- 
comfiture from a Wiltshire laborer: a simple, fresh-colored farm 
laborer of eight anddhirty, who at one time stood beside him look- 
ing on at new arrivals, and with whom he held this dialogue: 

Uncommercial. Would you mind my asking you what part of 
the country you come from? 

Wiltshire. Not a bit. Theer! (exultingly) I’ve worked all my 
life o’ Salisbury Plain, right under the shadder o’ Stonehenge. You 
mightn’t think it, but 1 haive. 

Uncommercial. And a pleasant country too. 

Wiltshire. Ah! ’Tis a pleasant country. 

Uncommercial. Have you any family on board? 

Wiltshire. Two children, boy and gal, lam a widderer, 1 am,,, 
and i’m going out alonger my boy and gal. That’s my gal, and 
she’s a fine gal o’ sixteen (pointing out the girl who is writing by 
the boat). I’ll go and fetch my boy. I’d like to show you my 
boy. (Here Wiltshire disappears, and presently comes back with a 
big shy boy of twelve, in a superabundance of boots, who is not at 
all glad to be presented.) He is a fine boy too, and a boy fur to 
work! (Boy having undutifully bolted, Wiltshire drops him.) 

Uncommercial. It must cost you a great deal of money'’ to go so 
far, three strong. 

Wiltshire. A power of money. Theer! Eight shillen a week„ 
eight shillen a week, eight shillen a week, put by out of the week’s 
wages tor ever so long. 

Uncommercial, 1 wonder how you did it. 

Wiltshire (recognizing in this a kindred spirit). See their now! 

I wonder how 1 done it! But what with a bit o’ subscription heer^ 
and what with a bit o’ help theer, it were done at last, though 1 
don’t hardly know how. Then it were untort-net for us, you see, 
as we got kep’ in Bristol so long — nigh a fortnight, it were—on ac- 
counts of a mistake wi’ Brotlier Halliday. Swallower’d up money, 
it did, when we might have come straight on. 

Uncommercial (delicately approaching Joe Smith). You are of 
the Mormon religion, of course? 

Wiltshire (confidently). Oh yes, /’m a Mormon! (Then re- 
flectively.) I’m a Mormon. (Then, looking round the ship, feigns 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 145 

to descry a particular triecd in an empty spot, and evades the Un- 
commercial tor evermore.) 

After a noontide pause for dinner, during which my emigrants 
were nearly all between-decks, and the “ Amazon ” looked de- 
serted, a general muster took place. The muster was for the cere- 
mony of passing the Government Inspector and the Doctor. Those 
authorities held their temporary state amidships, by a cask or two;; 
and, knowing that the whole eight hundred emigrants must come 
lace to face with them, 1 took my station behind the two. They 
knew nothing whatever of me, I believe, and my testimony to the 
unpretending gentleness and good-nature with which they dis- 
charged their duty may be of the greater worth. There was not 
the slightest flavor of the Circumlocution Office about their proceed- 
ings. 

The emigrants were now all on deck. They were densely crowded 
aft, and swarmed upon the poop-deck like bees. Two or three 
Mormon agents stood ready to hand them on to the Inspector, and 
to hand them forward when they had passed. By what successful 
means a special aptitude for organization had been infused into 
these people, 1 am, of course, unable to report. But I know that,, 
even now, there was no disorder, hurry, or difficulty. 

All being ready, the first group are handed on. That member of 
the party who is intrusted with the passenger ticket for the whole 
has been warned by one ot the agents to have it ready, and here it 
is in his hand. In every instance through the whole eight hundred, 
without an exception, this paper is always ready. 

Inspector (reading the ticket). Jessie Jobson, Sophronia JobsoUj, 
Jessie Jobson again, Maltilda Jobson, William Jobson, Jane Job- 
son, Matilda Jobson again, Brigham Jobson, Leonardo Jobson, 
and Orson Jobson. Are you all here? (glancing at the party over 
his spectacles), 

Jessie Jobson Number Two. All here, sir. 

This group is composed of an old grandfather and grandmother, 
their married son and his wife, and ilieir family of childien. Orson 
Jobson is a little child asleep in his mother’s arms. The Doctor, 
with a kind word or so, lifts up the corner of the mother’s shawl, 
looks at the child’s face, and touches the little Clinched hand. If 
we were all as well as Orson Jobson, doctoring would be a poor 
profession. 

Inspector. Quite right, Jessie Jobson. Take your ticket, Jes- 
sie, and pass on. 

And away they go. Mormon agent, skillful and quiet, hands 
them on. Mormon agent, skillful and quiet, hands next party up. 

Inspector (reading ticket again). Susannah Cleverly and William 
Cleverly. Brother and sister, eh? 

Sister (young woman of business, hustling slow brother). Yes,, 
sir. 

Inspector. Very good, Susannah Cleverly. Take your ticket, 
Susannah, and take care of it. 

And away they go. 

Inspector (taking ticket again). Sampson Dibble and Dorothy 
Dibble (surveying a very old couple over his spectacles with some 
surprise). Your husband quite blind, Mrs. Dibble? 


146 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

Mrs. Dibble. Yes, sir, he be stone blind. 

Mr. Dibble (addressin.^ the mast). Yes, sir, I be stone blind. 

Inspector. That’s a bad job. Take your ticket, Mrs. Dibble, 
and don’t lose it, and pass on. 

Doctor taps Mr. Dibble on the eyebrow with his forefinger, and 
away they go. 

Inspector (taking ticket again). Anastatia Weedle. 

Anastatia (a pretty girl in a bright Garibaldi, this morning 
elected by uni^tersal suffrage the Beauty of the Ship). That is me, 
sir. 

Inspector. Going alone, Anastatia? 

Anastatia (shaking her curls). I am with Mrs. Jobson, sir, but 
I’ve got separated for the moment 

Inspector. Oh! you are with the Jobsons? Quite right. That’ll 
do. Miss Weedle. Don’t lose your ticket. 

Away she goes, and joins the Jobsons who are waiting for her, 
and stoops and kisses Brigham Jobson—who appears to be con- 
sidered too young for the purpose by seveal Mormons rising twenty, 
who are looking on. Before her extensive skirts have departed from 
the casks a decent widow stands there with four children, and so 
the roll goes. 

The faces of some of the Welsh people, among whom there were 
many old persons, were certainly the least intelligent. Some of these 
emigrants would have bungled sorely, but for the directing hand 
that was always ready. The intelligence here was unquestionably 
of a low order, and the heads were of a poor type. Generally the 
case w^as the reverse. There were many worn faces bearing traces 
of patient poverty and hard work, and there was great steadiness of 
purpose and much undemonstrative self-rdspect among this class. 
A few young men were going singly. Several girls were going two 
or three together. These latter I found it very difficult to refer 
back, in my mind, to their relinquished homes and pursuits. Per- 
haps they were more like country milliners, and pupil teachers 
rather tawdrily dressed, than any other classes of young women. I 
noticed, gmong many little ornaments worn, more than one photo- 
graph brooch of the Prince of Wales, and also of the late Prince 
Consort. Some ainale women of from thirty to forty, whom one 
might suppose to be embroiderers, or straw-bonnet makers, were 
obviously going out in quest of husbands, as finer ladies go to India. 
That they had any distinct notions of a plurality of husbandc or 
wives, I do not believe. 

To suppose the family groups of whom the majority of emigrants 
were composed, polygamically possessed, would be to suppose an 
absurdity, manifest to any one who saw the fathers and mothers. 

I should say (1 had no means of ascertaining the fact) that most 
familiar kinds of handicraft trades were represented here. Farm 
laborers, shepherds, and the like, had their full share of representa- 
tion, but I doubt if they preponderated. It was interesting to see 
how the leading spirit in the family circle never failed to show itself, 
even in the simple process of answering to the names as they were 
called, and checking off the owners of the names. Sometimes it 
was the father, much oftener the mother, sometimes a quick little 
girl second or third in order of seniority. It seemed to occur for 


THE UHOOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


147 


the first time, to some heavy fathers, what larsje families they had; 
and their eyes rolled about, during the calling of the list, as if they 
half misdoubted some other family to have been smuggled into 
their own. Among all the fine handsome children, I observed but 
two with marks upon their necks that were probably scrofulous. 
Out of the whole number of emigrants, but one old woman was 
temporarily set aside by the Doctor, on suspicion of fever; but even 
she afterward obtained a clean bill of health. 

Wheb all had “ passed,” and the afternoon began to wear on, a 
black box became visible on deck, which box was in charge of cer- 
tain personages also in black, of whom only one had the con- 
ventional air of an itinerant preacher. This box contained a supply 
of hymn-books, neatly printed and got up, published at Liverpool, 
and also in London at the “ Latter-Day Saints’ Book Depot, 30 
Florence Street.” Some copies were handsomel}'- bound; the plainer 
were the more in request, and many were bought. The title ran: 
“ Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Church of Jesus Christ 
of Latter-Day Saints.” The Preface, dated Manchester, 1840, ran 
thus: “The Saints in this country have been very desirous for a 
Hymn Book adapted to their faith and worship, that they might 
sing the truth with an understanding heart, and express their praise, 
joy, and gratitude in songs adapted to the New and Everlasting 
Covenant. In accordance with their wishes, we have selected the 
following volume, which w'e hope will prove acceptable until a 
greater variety can be added. With sentiments of high considera- 
tion and esteem, we subscribe ourselves your brethren in the New 
and Everlasting Covenant, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, 
John Taylor.” From this book — by no means explanatory to 
myself of the New and Everlasting Co’^enant, and not at all mak- 
ing my heart an understanding one on the subject of that mystery — 
a hymn was sung, which did not attract any great amount of atten- 
tion, and was supported b}^ a rather select circle. But the choir in 
the boat was very popular and pleasant; and there w^as to have been 
a Band, only the Cornet was late in coming on board. In the course 
of the afternoon a mother appeared from shore, in search of her 
daughter, “ who had run away with the Mormons.” She received 
every assistance from the Inspector, but lier daughter was not 
found to be on board. The saints did not seem to me particularly 
interested in finding her. 

Toward five o’clock the gallery became full of tea-kettles, and an 
agreeable fragrance of tea pervaded the ship. There was no scram- 
bling or jostling for the hot water, no ill-humor, no quarreling. 

As tiie ” Amazon ” was to sail with the next tide, and as it would 
not be high water before twm o’clocii in the morning, I left her with 
her tea in full action, and lier idle Steam Tug lying by, deputing 
steam and smoke for the time being to the Tea-kettles. 

I afterward learned that a Dispatch was sent home by the Captain 
before he struck out into the wide Atlantic, highly extolling the 
behavior of these emigrants, and the perfect order and propriety of 
all their social arrangements. What is in store for the poor people 
on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, what happy delusions they 
are laboring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes may 
be opened then, 1 do not pretend to say. But I went on board their 


148 TllE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

ship to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully 
believed they would; to my great astonishment, they did not de- 
serve it; and my predispositions and tendencies must not affect me 
as an honest witness. 1 went over the “ Amazon’s” side, feeling it 
impossible to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had pro- 
duced a remarkable result, which better-known influences have 
often missed.* 


XXI. 

THE CITY OF THE ABSENT. 

When 1 think 1 deserve particularly well of myself, ardhave 
earned the right to enjoy a little treat, I stroll from Covent 
Garden into the City of London, after business hours there, on a 
Saturday, or — better yet — on a Sunday, and roam about its deserted 
nooks and corners. It is necessary to the full enjoyment of these 
journeys that they should be made in summer-time, for then the 
retired spots that T love to haunt are at their idlest and dullest. A 
gentle fall of rain is not objectionable, and a warm mist sets off my 
favorite retreats to decided advantage. 

Among these, City Churchyards hold a high place. Such strange 
churchyards hide in the City of London: churchyards sometimes so 
entirely detached from churches, always so pressed upon by 
houses; so small, so rank, so silent, so forgotten, except by the few 
people who ever look down into them from their smoky windows. 
As 1 stand peeping in through the iron gates and rails, 1 can peel 
the rusty metal off, like bark from an old tree. The illegible tomb- 
stones are all lop-sided, the grave-mounds lost their shape in the 
rains of a hundred years ago, the Lombardy Poplar or Plane Tree 
that was once a drysalter’s daughter and several comraon-council- 
men, has withered like those worthies, and its departed leaves are 
dust beneath it. Contagion of slow ruin overhangs the place. The 
discolored tiled roots of the environing buildings stand so awry, 
that they can hardly be proof against any stress of weather. Old 
crazy stacks of chimneys seem to look down as they overhang, 
dubiously calculating how far they will have to fall. In an angle 
of the walls, what was once the tool-house of the grave-digger rots 
away, incrusted with toadstools. Pipes and spouts for carrying off 
tbe rain from the encompassing gables, broken or feloniously cut for 
old lead long ago, now let the rain drip and splash as it list upon the 
weedy earth. Sometimes there is a rusty pump somewhere near, 
and, as I look in at the rails and meditate, I hear it working under 
an unknown hand with a creaking protest; as though the departed 

* After this Uncommercial Journey was printed, I happened to mention the 
experience it describes to Lord Houghton. That gentleman then showed me 
an article of his writing in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1862, which is 
highly remarkable for its philosophical and literary research, concerning 
these Latter-Day Saints. I find in it the following sentences: “The Select 
Committee of the House of Commons on emigrant ships for 1854 summoned the 
Mormon agent and passenger-broker before it, and came to the conclusion 
that no ships under the provisions of the ‘ Passengers Act ’ could be depended 
upon for comfort and security in the same degree as those under his adminis- 
tration. The Mormon ship is a Family under strong and accepted discipline, 
with every provision for comfort, decorum, and internal peace.” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 14:9 

in tlie churchyard urged, “ Lei us lie here in peace; don’t suck us 
up and drink us!” 

One of my best-beloved churchyards I call the churchyard of St. 
Ghastly Grim; touching what men in general call it, 1 have no in- 
formation. It lies at the heart of the City, and the Blackwall Rail- 
way shrieks at it daily. It is a small church 3 ^ard, with a 
ferocious strong spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is orna- 
mented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than the life, wrought in 
stone; but it likewise came into the mind of St. Ghastly Grim, that 
to stick iron spikes atop of the stone skulls, as thouirh they were 
impaled, would be a pleasant device. Therefore the skulls grin 
aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. Hence 
there is attraction of repulsion for me in St. Ghastly Grim, and, 
having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark,l once felt 
drawn toward it in a thunder-storm at midnight. ” Why not?” 1 
said in self-excuse. ” I have been to see the Coliseum by the light 
of the moon ; is it worse to see St. Ghastly Grim by the light of the 
lightning?” 1 repaired to the Saint in a hacRney-cab, and found the 
skulls most efiective, having the air of a public execution, and seem- 
ing, as the lightning flashed, to wink and grin with the pain of the 
spikes. Having no other person to whom to impart my satisfac- 
tion, I communicated it to the driver. So far from being respon- 
sive, he surveyed me — he was naturally a bottle-nosed red-faced 
man— with a blanched countenance. And, as he drove me back, lie 
ever and again glanced in over his shoulder through the little front 
window of his carriage, as mistrusting that I was a fare originally 
from a grave in the churchyard of St. Ghastly Grim, who might 
have flitted home again without paying. 

Sometimes, the queer Hall of some queer Company gives upon a 
church-yard such as this, and, when the Livery dine, you may hear 
them (if you are looking in through the iron rails, which you never 
are when I am) toasting their own Worshipful prosperity. Some- 
times, a wholesale house of business, requiring much room for 
storage, will occupy one or two, even all three, sides of the inclos- 
ing space, and the backs of bales of goods will lumber up the win- 
dows, as if they were liolding some crowded trade- meeting of them- 
selves within. Sometimes the commanding wdndows are all blank, 
and show no more sign of life than the graves below — not so mucli, 
for they tell of what once upon a time was life undoubtedly. Such 
was the surrounding of one City church-yard that I saw last sum- 
mer, on a Volunteering Saturday evening toward eight of the clock, 
when with astonishment 1 beheld an old man and an old woman in it, 
making hay. Yes, of all occupations in this world, making hay ! 
It was a very conflned patch of church-yard lying between Grace- 
church Street and the Tower, capable of yielding, say, an apronful 
of hay. By what means the old man and woman had got into it, 
with an almost toothless hay-making rake, I could not fathom. No 
open window was within view; no window at all was within view 
sufilciently near the ground to have enabled their old legs to descend 
from it; the rusty church-yard gate was locked, the moldy church 
was locked. Gravely among the graves they made hay, all alone by 
themselves. They looked like Time and his wife. There was but the 
one rake between them, and they both had hold of it, in a pastolally 


150 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

loving manner, and there was hay on the old woman's black bonnet, 
as if the old man had recently been playful. The old man was quite 
an obsolete old man, in knee breeches and coarse ,c:ray stockings, 
and the old woman wore mittens like unto his stockings in 
texture and in color. They took no heed of me as I looked on, unable 
to account for them. The old woman w^as much too brie;ht for a 
pew-opener, the old man much too meek for a beadle. On an old 
tombstone in the foreground, between me and them, were two 
cherul)im ; but for those celestial embellishments being represented as 
having no possible use for knee-breeches, stockings, or mittens, I 
should have compared them with the hay-makers, and sought a 
likeness. 1 coughed and awoke the echoes, but the hay-makers 
never looked at me. They used to rake with a measured action, 
drawing the scanty crop toward them; and so 1 was fain to leave 
them under three yards and a half of darkening sky, gravely making 
hay among the graves, all alone by themselves. Perhaps they were 
Specters, and 1 wanted a medium. 

In another City church-yard, of similar cramped dimensions, I 
saw, that self-same summer, two comfortable charity children. 
They were making love— tremendous prOof of the vigor of that im- 
mortal article, for they were in the graceful uniform under which 
English Charity delights to hide herself— and they were overgrown, 
and their legs (liis legs, at least, for I am modestly incompetent to 
speak of hers) were as much in the wrong as mere passive weakness 
of character can render legs. Oh, it was a leaden church-yard, but 
no doubt a golden ground to those young persons! I first saw them 
on a Saturday evening, and, perceiving from their occupations that 
Saturday evening was their trysting-time, I returned that evening 
se’nnight, and renewed the contemplation of them. They came there 
to shake the bits of matting which were spread in the church aisles, 
and they afterward rolled them up, he rolling his end, she rolling 
hers, until they met, and over the two once divided now united 
rolls — sweet emblem! — gave and received a chaste salute. It was so 
refreshing to find one of my faded church-yards blooming into flow- 
ers thus, that I returned a second time, and a third, and ultimately 
this befell: They had left the church-door open in their* dusting and 
arranging. Walking in to look at the church, I became aware, by 
the dim light, of him in the pulpit, of her in the reading-desk, of 
him looking down, of her looking up, exchanging tender discourse. 
Immediately both dived, and became as it were non-existent on this 
sphere. With an assumption of innocence 1 turned to leave the 
sacred edifice, when an obese form stood in the portal, pufflly de- 
manding Joseph, or, in default of Joseph, Celia. Taking this 
monster by the sleeve, and luring him forth on pretense of showing 
him whom he sought, I gave time for the emergence of Joseph and 
Celia, who presently came toward us in the church-yard, bending 
under dusty matting, a picture of thriving and unconscious in- 
dustry. It would be superfluous to hint that I have ever since 
deemed this the proudest passage in my life. 

But such instances, or any tokens of vitality, are rare indeed in 
my City church-yards. A few sparrows occasionally try to raise a 
lively chirrup in their solitary tree— perhaps, as taking a different 
view of worms from that entertained by humanity— but they are 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 151 

flat and hoarse of voice, like the clerk, the organ, the bell, the 
clergyman, and all the rest of church-works when they are wound 
up for Sunday. Caged larks, thrushes, or blackbirds, hanging in 
neighboring courts ,pour forth their strains passionately, as scenting 
the tree, trying to break out, and see leaves again before they die, but 
their song is VVillow, Willow— of a church-yard cast. So little light 
lives inside the churches of my church-yards, when the two are co- 
existent, that it is often only by an accident, and after long acquaint- 
ance, that 1 discover their havinir stained-glass in some odd window. 
The westering sun slants into the church-yard by some unwonted 
entry, a few prismatic tears drop on an old tombstone, and a window 
that 1 thought was only dirty is for the moment all bejeweled. 
Then the light passes and the colors die. Though even then, if 
there be room enough for me to fall back so far as that 1 can gaze 
up to the top of the church tower, 1 see the rusty vane new bur- 
nished, and seeming to look out with a joyful flash over the sea of 
smoke at the distant shore of countr3^ Blinking old men, who are 
let out of workhouses by the hour, have a tendency to sit on bits of 
coping-stone in these church-yards, leaning with both hands on their 
sticks, and asthmatically gasping. The more depressed class of 
beggars, too, bring hither broken meats, and munch. I am on nod- 
ding terms with a meditative turncock who lingers in one of them, 
and whom I suspect of a turn for poetry ; the rather as he looks out 
of temper when he gives the fire-plug a disparaging wrench with that 
large tuning-fork of his which would wear out the shoulder of his 
coat, but for a precautionary piece of inlaid leather. Fire-ladders, 
which I am satisfied nobody knows anything about, and the keys 
of which were lost in ancient times, molder away in the larger 
church-yards, under eaves like wooden eyebrows; and so removed 
are those corners from the haunts of men and boys, that once, on 
a fifth of November, I found a “ Guy ” trusted to take care of him- 
self there, while his proprietors had gone to dinner. Of the expres- 
sion of his face 1 cannot report, because it was turned to the wall; 
but his shrugged shoulders and his ten extended fingers appeared to 
■denote that he had moralized, in his little straw chair, on the mystery 
of mortality until he gave it up as a bad job. 

You do not come upon these church-yards violently; there are 
shades of transition in the neighborhood. An antiquated news 
shop, or barber’s shop, apparently bereft of customers in the earlier 
days of George the Third, would warn me to look out for one, if 
any discoveries in this respect were left for me to make. A very 
quiet court, in combination with an unaccountable dyer’s and 
scourer’s, would prepare me for a church-yard. An exceedingly 
retiring public-house, with a bagatelle board shadily visible in a 
sawdusty parlor shaped like an omnibus, and willi a shelf of 
punch-bowls in (lie bar, would apprise me that 1 stood near con- 
secrated ground. A “ Dairy,” exhibiting in its modest window one 
very little milk-can and three eggs, would suggest to me the cer- 
tainty of finding the poultry hard by, pecking at my forefathers. I 
first inferred the vicinity of St. Ghastly Grim from a certain air of 
extra repose and gloom pervading a vast stack of warehouses. 

From the hush of these places it is congenial to pass into the 
hushed resorts of business. Down the lanes I like to see the carta 


153 


THE UXCOMMEKCIAL TKAVELEli. 


and wagons huddled together in repose, the cranes idle, and the 
warehouses shut. Pausing in the alleys behind the closed Banks of 
mighty Lombard Street, it gives one as good as a rich feeling to think 
of the broad counters with a rim along the edge, made for telling 
money out on, the scales for weighing precious metals, the ponder- 
ous ledgers, and above all, the bright copper shovels for shoveling 
gold. When I draw money, it never seems so much money as when 
it is shoveled at me out of a bright copper shovel. 1 like to say, 
“ In Gold,” and to see seven pounds musically pouring out of the 
shovel, like seventy; the Bank appearing to remark to me — 1 italicize 
appearing—'* If you want more of this yellow earth, we keep it in 
barrows at your service.” To think of the banker’s clerk with his 
deft finger turning the crisp edges of the Hundred-Pound Holt s he 
has taken in a fat roll out ot a drawer, is again to hear the rustling 
of that delicious south-cash wind, “flow will you have it?” I 
once heard this usual question asked at a Bank Counter of an elderly 
female, habited in mourning and steeped in simplicity, who an- 
swered, open-eyed, crook-fingered, laughing with expectation, 
” Anyhow!” Calling these things to mind as 1 stroll among the 
Banks, 1 wonder whether the other solitary Sunday man I pass has 
designs upon the Banks. For the interest and mystery of the mat- 
ter, I almost hope he may have, and that his confederate may be at 
this moment taking impressions of the keys of the iron closets in 
wax, and that a delightful robbery may be in course of transaction. 
About College Hill, Mark Lane, and so on toward the Tower, and 
Dockward, the deserted wine merchants’ cellars are fine subjects for 
consideration; but the deserted money-cellars of the Bankers, and 
their plate-cellars, and their jewel-cellars, what subterranean regions 
of the Wonderful Lamp are these! And again: possibly some 
shoeless boy in rags passed through this street yesterday, for whom 
it is reserved to be a Banker in the fullness of time, and to be sur- 
passing rich. Such reverses have been since the days of Whitting- 
ton; and were long before. I want to know whether the boy has 
any foreglittering of that glittering fortune now when he treads 
these stones hungry. Muchas I also want to know whether the next 
man to be hanged at Newgate yonder had any suspicion upon him. 
that he was moving steadily tow^ard that fate, when he talked so 
much about the last man who had paid the same great debt at the 
same small Debtors’ Door. 

Where are all the people who on busy working days pervade 
these scenes? The locomotive banker’s clerk, who carries a black 
portfolio chained to him by a chain of steel, where is lie? Does he 
go to bed with his chain on — to church with his chain on—or does 
he lay it by? And if he lays it by, what becomes ot his portfolio, 
when he is unchained for a holiday? The waste-paper baskets of 
these closed counting-houses would let me into nihny hints of busi- 
ness matters if 1 had the exploration of them; and what secrets of 
the heart should I discover on the ‘‘ pads ” of the young clerks — 
the sheets of cartridge paper and blotting paper interposed between 
their writing and their desks! Pads are taken into confidence on 
the tenderest occasions, and oftentimes when 1 have made a busi- 
ness visit, and have sent in my name from the outer office, have 1 
had it forced on my discursive notice that the ofidcialing young gen- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER, 


153 


tleman has over and over again inscribed Amelia, in ink of various 
‘dates, on corners ot his pad. Indeed, the pad may be regarded as 
the legitimate modern successor of the old forest tree; whereon 
these young knights (having no attainable forest nearer than Ep- 
ping) engrave the names of their mistresses. After all, it is a more 
satisfactory process than carving, and can be pftener repeated. So 
these courts m their Sunday rest are courts of Love Omnipotent (1 re- 
joice to bethink myself), dry as they look. And here is Garra way’s, 
bolted and shuttered hard and fast! It is possible to imagine the 
man who cuts the sandwiches, on his back in a hay field; it is pos- 
sible to imagine his desk, like the desk of a clerk at church, wdth- 
oui him; but imagination is unable to pursue the men who wait at 
Garrawaj’^’s all the week for the men who never come. When they 
are forcibly put out of Garraways on Saturday night — which they 
must be, for they never would go out of their own accord — where 
do they vanish until Monday morning? On the first Sunday that I 
ever strayed here, 1 expected to find them hovering about these 
lanes, like restless ghosts, and trying to peep into Garraways 
through chinks m the shutters, if not’ endeavoring to turn the lock 
of the door with false keys, picks, and screw drivers. But the won- 
der is, that they go clean away! And now 1 think of it, the won- 
der is, that every working day pervader of these scenes goes clean 
■away. The man who sells the dogs collars and the little toy coal- 
scuttles feels under as great an obligation to go afar ofi as Glyn & 
Co., or Smith, Payne & Smith. There is an old monastery crypt 
under Garraways (I have been in it among the port wine), and per- 
haps Garraway's, taking pity on the moldy men who wait in its 
public-room all their lives, gives them cool house-room down there 
over Sundays; but the catacombs of Paris would not be large 
enough to hold the rest of the missing. This characteristic of Lon- 
don City greatly helps its being the quaint place it is in the .weekly 
pause of business, and greatly helps my Sunday sensation in it of 
being the Last Man. In my solitude, the ticket porters being all 
gone with the rest, 1 venture to breathe to the quiet bricks and stones 
my confidential wonderment why a ticket porter, who never does 
any work with his hands, is bound to wear a white apron, and why 
a great Ecclesiastical Dignitary, who never does any work with 
chis hands either, is equally bound to wear a black one. 


XXIl. 

AN OLD STAGE-COACHING HOUSE. 

Before the w-aitress had shut the door, 1 had forgotten how 
many stage coaches she said used to change horses in the town every 
day. But it was of little moment; any high number would do as 
well* as another. It had been a great stage-coaching town in the 
great stage-coaching times, and the ruthless railways had killed and 
buried it. 

The sign of the house was the Dolphin’s Head. Why only head, 
1 don’t know; for ihe Dolphin’s effigy at full length, and upside 
down— as a Dolphin is always bound to l)e when artistically 
treated,, though I suppose he is sometimes right side upward in his 


154 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


natural condition— s^raced the sign-board. The sign-board chafetJ 
its rusty hooks outside the bow window of my room, and was a 
shabby work. No visitor could have denied that the Dolphin was 
dying by inches, but he showed no bright colors. He had once 
served another master; there was a newer streak of paint below 
him, displaying with inconsistent freshness the legend, by J. Mel- 
lows. 

My door opened again, and J. Mellows’s representative came 
back. 1 had asked her what I could have for dinner, and she now 
returned with the counter-question, what would I like? As the 
Dolphin stood possessed of nothing that I do like, I w'as fain to 
yield to the suggestion of a duck, which I don't like. J. Mellows’s 
representative was a mournful young w’oman, with one eye suscep- 
tible of guidance, and one uncontrollable eye; which latter, seem- 
ing to wander in quest of stage-coaches, deepened the melancholy 
in which the Dolphin w'-as steeped. 

This young wmmauhad but shut the door on retiring again, when 
1 bethought me of adding to my order the words, “ with nice vege- 
tables.” Looking out at the door to give them emphatic utterance, I 
found her already in a stat( of pensive catalepsy in the deserted gal- 
lery, picking her teeth with a pin. 

At the Railw^ay Station, seven miles off, 1 had been the subject of 
wonder when 1 ordered a fly in which to come here. And when 1 
gave the dirction, ” To the Dolphin’s Head,” I had observed an 
ominous stare on the countenance of the strong young man in vel- 
veteen, who was the platform servant of the Company. He had 
also called to my driver at parting, ” All r-ight! Don’t hang your- 
self when you get there, Geo-o-rge!” in a sarcastic tone, for which 
I had entertained some transitory thoughts ot reporting him to the 
General Manager, 

'1 had no business in the town — I never have any business in any 
town — but I had been caught by the fancy that I wmuld come and 
look at it in its degeneracy. My purpose was fitly inaugurated by 
the Dolphin’s Head, wdiich everywdiere expressed past coachful- 
ness and present coachlessness. Colored prints of coaches starting, 
arriving, changing horses, coaches in the sunshine, coaches in the 
snow, coaches in the wind, coaches in the mist and rain, coaches on 
the King’s birthday, coaches in all circumstances compatible witii 
their triumph and victory, but never in the act of breaking down 
or overturning, pervaded the house. Of these wmrks of art, some, 
framed and not glazed, had lioles in them; the varnish of others 
had become so brown and cracked that the}'' looked like overdone 
pie-crust; the designs of others were almost obliterated by the flies 
of many summers. Broken glasses, damaged frames, lop-sided hang- 
ing, and consignment of incurable cripples to places of refuge in 
dark corners, attested the desolation of the rest. The old room on 
the ground floor, where the passengers of the Highfl 3 '-er used to 
dine had nothing in it but a wretched show of twigs and flower- 
pots in the broad window to hide the nakedness of the land, and 
in a corner little Mellows’s perambulator, with even its parasol 
head turned despondently^ to the wall. The other room, w’here post- 
horse company used to wgit while relay^s w’ere getting ready down 
the yard, still held its ground, but w'as as airless as I conceive a 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 155 

liearse to be; insomuch that Mr. Pitt, han^^ing hisrh against the 
partition (with spots on him like port wine, though it is mysterious 
how port wine ever got squirted up there), had good reason for 
perking his nose and sniffing. The stopperless cruets on the spindle- 
shanked sideboard were in a miserably dejected state; the anchovy 
sauce having turned blue some years ago, and the cayenne pepper 
(with a scoop in it like a small model of a wooden leg) having I timed 
solid. The old fraudulent candles, which were always being paid 
for and never used, were burnt out at last; but their tall stilts of 
candlesticks still lingered, and still outraged the human intellect by 
pretending to be silver. The moldy old unreforraed Borough Mem- 
ber, with his right hand buttoned up in the breast of his coat., and - 
his back characteristically turned on bales of petitions from his 
constituents, was there too; and the poker which never had been 
among the lire-irons, lest post-horse company should over-stir that 
fire, was not there, as of old. 

Pursuing my researches in the Dolphin’s Head, I found it sorely 
shrunken. When J. Mellows came into possession, he had walled 
off half the bar, which was now a tobacco shop with its own en- 
trance in the yard — the once glorious yard where the postboys, whip 
in hand and always buttoning their waistcoats at the last moment, 
used to come running forth to mount and away, A “ {Scientific 
Shoeing Smith and Veterinary Surgeon ” had further encroached 
upon the yard; and a grimly satirical Jobber, who announced him- 
self as having to Let “ A neat one-horse fly, and a one-horse-cart,” 
had established his business, himself, and his family, in a part of 
the extensive stables. Another part was lopped clean off from the 
Dolphin’s Head, and now comprised a chapel, a wheelwright’s, 
and a Young Men’s Mutual Improvement and Discussion Society 
(in a loft), the whole forming a back-lane. No audacious hand had 
plucked down the vane from the central cupola of the stables, but 
it had grown rusty and stuck at N — Nil; while the score or two of 
pigeons that remained true to their ancestral traditions and the 
place, had collected in a row on the roof-ridge of the only outhouse 
retained by the Dolphin, where all the inside pigeons tried to push 
the outside pigeon off. This I accepted as emblematical of the 
struggle for post and place in railway times. 

Sauntering forth into the town by w'ay of the covered and pillared 
entrance to the Dolphin’s Yard, once redolent of soup and stable 
litter, now redolent of musty disuse, 1 paced the street. It was a 
hot day, and the little sun-blinds of the shops were all drawn down 
and the more enterprising tradesmen had caused their ’prentices to 
trickle water on the pavement appertaining to their frontage. It 
looked as if they had been shedding tears for the stage-coaches, and 
drying their ineffectual pocket-handkerchiefs. Such weakness 
would have been excusable; for business was— as one dejected 
pork-man, who kept a shop which refused to reciprocate the com- 
pliment by keeping him, informed me — ” bitter bad,” Most of the 
harness-makers and corn-dealers were gone the way of the coaches 
but it was a pleasant recognition of the eternal procession of Ohil;^_ 
dren down that original steep Incline, the Valley of the Shadow^” 
that those tradesmen were mostly succeeded by venders of sweet- 
meats and cheap toys. The opposition to the Dolphin, once famous 


15G ' THE UXCOMMEllCIAL TKAVELEK. 

as the New White Hart, had long collapsed. In a fit of abject de- 
pression, it had cast whitewash on its windows, and boarded up^ 
Its front- door, and reduced itself to a side-entrance; but even that 
had proved a world too wide for the Literary Institution which had 
been its last phase; for the Institution had collapsed too, and of the 
ambitious letters of its inscription on the White Hart’s front, all 
had fallen oil but these: 

L y INS T 

— suggestive of Lamentably Insolvent. As to the neighboring mar- 
ket-place, it seemed to have wholly relinquished marketing to the 
dealer in crockery whose pots and pans straggled half across it. and 
to the Cheap Jack who sat with folded arms on the shafts of his 
cart, superciliously gazing around; his velveteen waistcoat evi- 
dently harboring grave doubts whether it was worth his while to 
stay a night in such a place. 

ihie church bells began to ring as I left this spot, but they by no 
means improved the case, for they said, in a petulant way, and 
speaking with some difficulty in their irritation, “ What’s be- 
come-of-THE-coach-ES?” Nor would they (I found on listening) 
ever vary their emphasis, save in respect of growing more sharp and 
vexed, but invariably went on, “ WHAT’s-become-of-THE-coach-ES?’^ 
— always beginning that inquiry with an unpolite abruptness. Per- 
haps from their elevation they saw the railway, and it aggravated 
them. 

Coming upon a coachmaker’s workshop, 1 began to look about 
me with a revived spirit, thiu^ng that perchance I might behold 
there some remains of the old times of the town’s greatness. There 
was only one man at work — a dry man, grizzled, and far advanced 
in years, but tall and upright, who, becoming aware of me look- 
ing on, straightened his back, pushed up liis spectacles against his- 
brown-paper cap, and appeared inclined to defy me. To whom 1 
pacifically said: 

“ Good -day, sir!” 

“ What?” said he. 

Good -day, sir.” 

He seemed to consider about that, and not to agree with me. 

” Was you a looking for anything?” he then asked in a pointed 
manner. 

” I was wondering whether there happened to be any fragment 
of an old stage-coach here.” 

“Is that all?” 

“That’s all.” 

“ No, there ain’t.” 

It was now my turn to say “ Oh!” and 1 said it. Not another 
word did the dry and grizzled man say, but bent to his work again. 
In the coachmaking days, the coach painters had tried their brushes 
on a post beside him; and quite a Calendar of departed glories was 
to be read upon it, in blue and yellow and red and green, some 
inches thick. Presently he looked up again. 

“You seem to have a deal of time on your hands,” was his 
querulous remark. 

1 admitted the fact. 


THE U^^COMMEHCIAL TRAVELER. 167 

“ I think it’s a pity you was not brought up to something,” said 
he. 

1 said 1 thought so too. 

Appearing to be mformecT with an idea, he laid down his plane 
(for it was a plane he was at work with), pushed up his spectacles 
again, and came to the door. 

” VVould a po-sbay do for you?” he asked. 

“ 1 am not sure that I understand what you mean.” 

” Would a po-shay,” said the coach maker, standing close before 
me, and folding his arms in the manner of a cross-examining coun- 
sel — ” would a po-sUay meet the views you have expressed? Yes, 
or no?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then you keep straight along down there till you see one. 
Yoii'W see one if you go fur enough.” 

■With that he turned me by the shoulder in the direction I was to 
take, and went in and resumed his work against a background of 
leaves and grapes. For, although he was a soured man and a dis- 
contented, his workshop was that agreeable mixture of town and 
country, street and garden, which is often to be seen in a small En- 
glish town. 

1 went the way he turned me, and I came to the Beer-shop with 
the sign of The First and Last, and was out of the town on the old 
London Road. I came to the turnpike, and I found it, in its silent 
way, eloquent respecting the change that had fallen on the road. 
The Turnpike-house was all overgrown with ivy; and the Turn- 
pike-keeper, unable to get a living out of tolls, plied the trade of a 
cobbler. Not only that, but his wife sold ginger-beer, and, in the 
very window of espial through which the Toll-takers of old times 
used with awe to behold the grand London coaches coming on at a 
gallop, exhibited for sale little barbers’ poles of sweetstuff in a 
sticky lantern. 

The political economy of the master of the turnpike thus ex- 
pressed itself. 

“ How goes turnpike business, master?” said I to him, as he sat 
in his little porch, repairing a shoe. 

“ It don’t go at all, master,” said he to me. “ It’s stopped.” 

“ That’s bad,” said I. 

“Bad?” he repeated. And he pointed to one of his sun-burnt 
dusty children who was climbing the turnpike-gate, and sgid, ex- 
tending his open right hand in remonstrance with Universal Nature, 
“ Five on ’em!” 

“ But how to improve Turnpike business?” said I. 

“ Tliere’s a way, master,” said he, with the air of one who had 
thought deeply on the subject. 

“ 1 should like to know.it.” 

“ Lay a toll on everything as comes through; lay a toll on walk- 
ers. Lay another toll on everything as don’t come through; lay a 
toll on them as stops at home.” 

“ Would the last remedy be fair?” 

“ Fair? Tliem as stops at home could come through if they liked; 
couldn’t they?” 

“ Say they could.” 


158 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

“ Toll ’em. If they don’t come through, it’s their look-out. 
Anyways— Toll ’em!” ^ 

Finding it was as impossible to argue with this financial genius as 
if he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and consequently the 
right man in the right place, I passed on meekly. 

My mind now began to misgive me that the disappointed coach- 
maker had sent me on a wild-goose errand, and that there was no 
post-chaise in those parts. But coming within view of certain allot- 
ment gardens bv the roadside, I retracted the suspicion, and con- 
fessed that I had done him an injustice. For, there I saw, surely, 
the poorest superannuated post-chaise left on earth. 

It was a post-cliaise taken off its axletree and wheels, and 
plumped down on the clayey soil among a ragged growth of vege- 
tables. It was a post-chaise not even set straight upon the ground, 
but tilted over, as if it had fallen out of a balloon. It was a post- 
chaise that had been a long time in those decayed circumstances, 
and against wdiich scarlet-beans were trained. It was a post-chaise 
patched and mended with old tea-trays, or with scraps of iron that 
looked like them, and boarded up as to the windows, but having 
A KNOCKER ou the oll-side door. Whether it was a post-chaise used 
as a tool-house, summer-house, or dwelling-house, 1 could not dis- 
cover, for there was nobody at home at the post-chaise when 1 
knocked; but it was certainly used for something, and locked up. 

In the wonder of this discovery, I walked round and round the 
post-chaise many times, and sat down by the post-chaise, waiting 
for further elucidation. None came. At last, 1 made my w'ay 
back to the old London Koad by the further end of the allotment 
gardens, and consequently at a point beyond that from which I had 
diverged. I had to scramble through a hedge and down a steep 
bank, and I nearly came down atop of a little spare man who sat 
breaking stones by the roadside. 

lie stayed his hammer, and said, regarding me mysteriously 
through his dark goggles of wire: 

“ Are- you aware, sir, that you have been trespassing?” 

“ I turned out of the way,” said I in explanation, “ to look at that 
odd post-chaise. Do^you happen to know anything about it?” 

“ I know it was many a year upon the road,” said he. 

“ So i supposed. Do you know to whom it belongs?” 

The stone-breaker bent his brows and goggles over his heap of 
stones, as if he were considering whether he should Unswer the 
question or not. Then, raising his barred eyes to my features as 
before, he said: 

” To me.” 

Being quite unprepared for the reply, I received it with a suffi- 
ciently awkward ‘‘Indeed! Dear me!” Presently I added, ‘‘ Do 

you ” 1 was going to say ‘‘ live there,” but it seemed so absurd 

a question, that 1 substituted ‘‘ live near here?” 

The stone-breaker, who had not broken a fragment since we 
began to converse, then did as follows. He raised himself by pois- 
ing his figure on his hammer, and took his coat, on which he had 
been sealed, over his arm. He then backed to an easier part of the 
bank than that by which I had come down, keejung his dark gog- 
gles silently upon me all the time, and then shouldered his. hammer. 


THE UHCOMMERCrAL TRAVELER. 


159 

suddenly turned, ascended, and was gone. His face was so small, 
and liis goggles were so large, that lie left me wholly uninformed as 
to his countenance; but he left me a profound impression that the 
curved legs I had seen from behind, as he vanished, were the legs 
of an old postboy. ^ It was not until then that I noticed he had been 
working by a grass-grown milestone, which looked like a tombstone 
erected over the grave of the London Road. 

My dinner hour being close at hand, 1 had no leisure to pursue 
the goggles or the subject then, but made my way back to the 
Dolphin’s Head. In the gateway I found J. Mellows looking at 
nothing and apparently experiencing that it failed to raise his 
spirits. 

“ 1 don’t care for the town,” said J. Mellows, when 1 compli- 
mented him on the sanitary advantages it may or may not possess; 
“ I wish I had never seen the town!” 

” You don’t belong to it, Mr. Mellows?” 

“ Belong 10 it!” repeated Mellows. ” If 1 didn’t belongto a bet- 
ter style of town than this, I’d take and drown myself in a pail.” 
It then occurred to me that Mellows, having so little to do, was 
habitually thrown back on his internal resources— by which I mean 
the Dolphin’s cellar. 

” What we want,” said Mellows, pulling off his hat, and making 
as if he emptied it of the last load of Disgust that had exuded from 
his brain, before he put it on again for another load; ” what we 
want is a Branch. The Petition for the Branch Bill is in the coffee- 
room. Would you put your name to it? Every little helps. ” 

I found the document in question stretched out flat on the coffee- 
room table by the aid of certain w'eights from the kitchen, and 1 
gave it the additional weight of my uncommercial signature. To 
the best of my belief, I bound myself to the modest statement that 
universal traffic, happiness, prosperity and civilization, together 
with unbounded national triumph in competition with the foreigner, 
would infallibly flow from the Branch. 

Having achieved this constitutional feat, I asked Mr. Mellows if 
he could grace my dinner with a pint of good wine? Mr. Mellows 
thus replied: 

“If I couldn’t give you a pint of good wine, I’d— there! — I’d 
take and drown myself in a pail. But I was deceived when I 
bought this business, and the stock was higgledy-piggledy, and I 
haven’t yei lasted my way quite through it with a view to sorting 
it. Therefore, if you order one kind and get another, change till it 
comes right. For what,” said Mellows, unloading his hat as be- 
fore, “ what wouljl you or any gentleman do, if you ordered one 
kind of wine, and was required to drink another? Why, you’d 
(and naturally and properly, having the feelings of a gentleman), 
you’d take and drown yourself in a pailJ” 

XXIII. 

THE BOILED BEEP OP NEW ENGLAND. 

The shabbiness of our English capital, as compared with Paris, 
Bordeaux, Frankfort, Milan, Geneva— almost any important town 
on the continent of Europe — I find very striking after an absence 


160 THE U^’-COMMERCIAL TRATEJ.ER. 

of any duration in foreign parts. London is shabby in contrast 
with Edinburgh, with Aberdeen, with Exeter, with Liverpool, 
with a bright little town like Bury St. Edmunds. _ London is 
:shabby in contrast with New York, with Boston, with Philadel- 
phia. In detail, one would say it can rarely tail to be a disappoint- 
ing piece of sbabbiness to a stranger from any of those places. 
There is nothing shabbier than Drury Lane in Rome itself. The 
meanness -of Regent Street, set against the great line of Boulevards, 
in Paris, is as striking as the abortive ugliness of Trafalgar Square 
set against the gallant beauty of the Place de la Concorde. Loudon 
Is shabby by daylight, and shabbier by gaslight. No^ Englishman 
knows wiiat gas-light is until he sees the Rue de Rivoli and the 
Palais Royal after darko 

The mass of London people are shabby. The absence of distinct- 
ive dress has, no doubt, something to do with it. The porters of 
the Vintners’ Company, the draymen, and the butchers, are about 
the only people who wear distinctive dresses; and even these do not 
wear them on holidays. We have nothing which, for cheapness, 
cleanliness, convenience, or picturesqueness, can compare with the 
belted blouse. As to our women— next Easter or ^ Whitsuntide, 
look at the bonnets at the British Museum or the National Gallery, 
and tiiink of the pretty white French cap, the Spanish mantilla, or 
the Genoese mezzero. 

Probably there are not more second hand clothes sold in London 
than in Paris, and yet the mass of the London population have a 
second-hand look which is not to be detected on the mass of Uie 
Parisian population. I think this is mainly because a Parisian 
workman does not in the least trouble himself about what is worn 
by a Parisian idler, but dresses in the way of his own class, and for 
-his own comfort. In London, on the contrary, the fashions descend ; 
and you never fully know how inconvenient or ridiculous a fashion 
is until you see it in its last descent. It was but the other day, on a 
race-course, that 1 observed four people in a. barouche deriving 
great entertainment from the contemplation of four people on foot. 
The four people on foot were two young men and two young women ; 
the four people in the barouche were two youngmenand two young 
women. The four ymung women were dressed in exactly the same 
style; the four young men were dressed in exactly the same style. 
Yet the two couples on wheels were as much amused by the two 
couples on foot as if they were quite unconscious of having them- 
selves set those fashions, or of being at the yery moment engaged in 
the display of them. 

Is it only in the matter of clothes that fashion descends here in 
London— and consequently in England — and thence shabbiness 
arises? Let us think a little, and be just. The “ Black Country ” 
round about Birmingham is a very black countryi but is it quite as 
black as it has been lately painted? An appalling accident hap- 
pened at the People’s Park, near Birmingham, this last July, when 
it was crowded with people from the Black .Country— an appalling 
accident consequent on a shamefully dangerous exhibition. Did the 
shamefully dangerous exhibition originate in the moral blackness of 
the Black Country, and in the Black People’s peculiar love of the ex- 
citement attendant on great personal hazard, which they looked on 


THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


161 


at, but in winch they did not participate? Light is much wanted 
in the Black Country. Oh! we all are agreed on that. But, we 
must not quite forget the crowds of gentlefolks who set the shame- 
fully dangerous fashion, either. We must not quite forget the en- 
terprising Directors of an Institution vaunting mighty educational 
pretenses, who made the low sensation as strong as they possibly 
could make it, by banging the Blondin rope as high as they pos- 
sibly could hang it. All this must not be eclipsed in the Blackness 
of the Black Country. The reserved seats high up by the rope, the 
cleared space below it, so that no one should be smashed but the 
performer, the pretense of slipping and falling off, the baskets for 
the feet and the sack for the head, the photographs everywhere, 
and the virtuous indignation nowhere — all this must not be wholly 
swallowed up in the blackness of the jet-black country. 

■Whatsoever fashion is set in England is certain to descend. This 
is a text for a perpetual sermon on care in setting fashions. When 
you find a fashion low down, look back for the time (it will never 
be far oft) when it was the fashion high up. This is the text for a 
perpetual sermon on social justice. From imitations of Ethiopian 
Serenaders to imitations of Prince’s coats and waistcoats, you will 
find the original model in St. James’s Parish. When the Serenaders 
become tiresome, trace them beyond the Black Country; when the 
coats and waistcoats become insupportable, refer them to their 
source in the Upper Toady Regions. 

Gentlemen’s clubs were once maintained for purposes of savage 
party warfare; working-men’s clubs of the same day assumed the 
same character. Gentlemen’s clubs became places of quiet inoffen- 
sive recreation; working-men’s clubs began to follow suit. If work- 
ing-men have seemed rather slow to appreciate advantages of com- 
bination which have saved the pockets of gentlemen, and enhanced 
their comforts, it is because working-men could scarcely, for want 
of capital, originate such combinations without help; and because 
help has not been separable from that great impertinence. Patron- 
age. The instinctive revolt of his spirit against patronage is a 
quality much to be respected in the English working-man. It is 
the base of the base of his best qualities. Nor is it surprising that 
he should be unduly suspicious of patronage, and sometimes resent- 
ful of it even where it is not. seeing what a flood of washy talk has 
been let loose on his devoted head, or with what complacent conde- 
scension the same devoted head has been smoothed and patted. It 
is a proof to me of his self-control that he never strikes out pugilis- 
tically, right and left, when addressed as one of “ My friends,” or 

My assembled friends;” that he does not become inappeasable 
and run a-muck like a Malay, whenever he sees a biped in broad- 
<jloth getting on a platform to talk to him; that any pretense of im- 
proving his mind does not instantly drive him out of his mind, and 
cause him to toss his obliging patron like a mad bull. 

For, how often have L heard the unfortunate working-man lect- 
ured as if he were a little charity child, humid as to his nasal de- 
velopment, strictly literal as to his catechism, and called by Provi- 
dence to walk all his days in a station in life represented on festive 
occasions by a mug of warm milk-and-water and a bunl What 
pop-guns of jokes have these ears tingled to hear let off at him, what 
6 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAYELER. 


162 


asinine sentiments, what impotent conclusions, what spelling-book 
moralities, what adaptations of the orator’s insufferable lediousness 
to the assumed level of his understanding! If his sledge-hammers, 
his spades and pickaxes, his saws and chisels, his paint pots and 
brushes, his forges, furnaces, and engines, the horses that he drove 
at his work, and the machines that drove him at his work, were all 
toys in one little paper box, and he the baby who played with them, 
he could not have been discoursed to more impertinently and ab- 
surdly than I have heard him discoursed to times innumerable^ 
Consequently, not being a fool or a fawner, he has come to ac- 
knowledge his patronage by virtually saying: “Let me alone. It 
you understand me no belter than that, sir and madam, let me alone. 
You mean very tYell, 1 dare say, but I don’t like it, and I won’t 
come here again to have any more of it.’’ 

Whatever is done for the comfort and advancement of the work- 
ing-man must be so far done by himself as that it is maintained by 
himself. And there must be in it no touch of condescension, no 
shadow of patronage. In the great working districts this truth is 
studied and understood. When the American civil war rendered it 
necessary, first in Glasgow, and afterward in Manchester, that the 
working- people should be shown how to avail themselves of the ad- 
vantages derivable from system, and from the combination of num- 
bers, in the purchase and the cooking of their food, this truth was 
above all things borne in mind. The quick consequence was, that 
suspicion and reluctance were vanquished, and that the effort re- 
sulted in an astonishing and a complete success. 

Such thoughts passed through my mind on a July morning of 
this summer, as 1 walked toward Commercial Street (not Uncom- 
mercial Street), Whitechapel. The Glasgow and Manchester system 
had been lately set a-going there by certain gentlemen who felt an 
interest in its diffusion, and I had been attracted by the following, 
handbill printed on rose-colored paper: 

SELF-SUPPORTING COOKING DEPOT, 

FOR THE WORKING CLASSES, 

Commercial Street, Whitechapel, 

Where Accommodation is provided for Dining comfortably 300 persons at 

a time. 

Open from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. 


PRICES. 


All Articles of the Best Quality. 

Cup of Tea or Coffee One Penny 

Bread and Butter One Penny 

Bread and Cheese One Penny 

Slice of Bread One halfpenny or One Penny 

Boiled Egg One Penny 

Ginger Beer One Penny 

The above Articles alwaj^s ready. 


Besides the above may be had from 12 to 3 o’clock. 


Bowl of Scotch Broth One Penny 

Bowl of Soup One Penny 

Plate of Potatoes One Penn 3 r 


THE UXCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


163 


Plate of Minced Beef Twopence 

Plate of Cold Beef Twopence 

Plate of Cold Ham Twopence 

Plate of Plum Pudding or Rice One Penny 


As the Economy of Cooking depends greatly upon the simplicity of the 
arrangements with which a great number of persons can be served at one 
time, the Upper Room of this Establishment will be especially set apart 
for a 

Public DINNER every Day From 12 till 3 o’clock, 

Consisting of the following Dishes : 

Bowl of Broth, or Soup. Plate of Potatoes, 

Plate of Cold Beet, or Jiam, Plum Pudding, or Rice. 

FIXED CHARGE 4}4d. 

THE DAILY PAPERS PROVIDED ' 

N.B.— This Establishment is conducted on the strictest business principles, 
with the full intention of making it self-supporting, so that every one may 
frequent it with a feeling of perfect independence. 

The assistance of all frequenting the Depot is confidently expected in check* 
ing anything interfering with the comfort, quiet, and regularity of the estab- 
lishment. 

Please do not destroy this Handbill, but hand it to some other person whom 
it may interest. 

This Self-Supporting Cooking Depot (not a very good name, and 
one would rather give it an English oiie) had hired a newly-built 
warehouse that it found to let; therefore it was not established in 
premises especially designed for the purpose. But, at a small cost, 
they were exceedingly well adapted to the purpose, being lighi, well 
ventilated, clean, and cheerful. They consisted of three large 
rooms. That on the basement story v/as the kitchen; that on the 
ground floor was the general dining-room; that on the floor above 
was the Upper Room referred to in the handbill, where the Public 
Dinner at fourpence-halfpenny a head was proviiled every day. 
The cooking was done, with much economy of space and fuel, by 
American cooking-stoves, and by young women not previously 
brought up as cooks; the walls and pillars of the two dining-rooms 
were agreeably brightened with ornamental colors; the tables were 
capable of accommodating six or eight persons eaTch; the attendants 
were all young women, becomingly and neatly dressed, and dressed 
alike. 1 think the whole stafi: was female, with the exception of the 
steward or manager. 

My first inquiries were directed to the wages of this staff; be- 
cause, if any establishment claiming to be self-supporting live upon 
the spoliation of anybody or anything, or eke out a feeble existence 
by poor mouths and beggarly resources (as too many so called 
Mechanics’ Institutions do), 1 make bold to express my uncommer- 
cial opinion that it has no business to live, and had better die. It 
was made clear to me, by the account books, that every person em- 
ployed was properly paid. My next inquiries were directed to the 
quality of the provisions purchased, and to the terms on which they 
were bought. It was made equally clear to riie that the quality was 
the very best, and that all bills were paid weekly. My next in- 
quiries were directed to the balance-sheet for the last two weeks — 
only the third and fourth of the establishment’s career. It was 


164 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

made equally clear to me, that after eve^thing bought was paid for 
and after each v/eek was charged with its full share of wages, rent 
and taxes, depreciation of plant in use, and interest on capital at the 
rate of tour per cent, per annum, the last week had yielded a profit 
of (in round numbers) one pound ten; and the- previous week a, 
profit of six pounds ten. By this time I felt that 1 had a healthy 
appetite for the dinners. 

it had just struck twelve, and a quick succession of faces had 
already begun to appear at a little window in the wall ot the par- 
titioned space where I sat looking over the books. Within this 
little window, like a pay-box at a theater, a neat and brisk young 
woman presided to take money and issue tickets. Every one com- 
ing in must fake a ticket. Either the fourpence-half penny ticket for- 
the upper room (the most popular ticket, 1 think), or a penny ticket 
for a^bo wl of soup, oi as many penny tickets as he or she chose to buy. 
For three penny tickets one Jiad quite a wide range ot choice. A 
plate of cold boiled beef and potatoes; or a plate of cold ham and 
potatoes; or a plate of hot minced beef and potatoes; or a bowl of 
soup, bread and cheese, and a plate of plum-pudding. Touching 
what they should have, some customers, on taking their seats, tell 
into a reverie — became mildly distracted — postponed decision, and. 
said, in bewilderment, they would think of it. One old man 1 no- 
ticed when 1 sat among the tables in the lower room, who was 
startled by the bill ot fare, and sat contemplating it as if it were 
something of a ghostly nature. The decision of the boys was as 
rapid as their execution, and always included pudding. 

There were several women among the diners, and several clerks 
and shopmen. There were carpenters and painters from the neigh- 
boring buildings under repair, and there were nautical men, and 
there were, as one diner observed to me, “some ot most sorts.” 
Some were solitary, some came two together, some dined in parties 
of three or four, or six. The latter talked together, but assuredly 
no one was louder than at my club in Pall Mall. One young fellow" 
whistled in rather a shrill manner while he waited for his dinner, 
but I was gratified to observe that he did so in evident defiance of 
my uncommercial individuality. Quite agreeing with him, on con- 
sideration, that 1 had no business to be there, unless 1 dined like 
the rest, 1 “ w^ent in,” as the phrase is, for fourpence-halfpenny. 

The room’of the fourpence-halfpenny banquet had, like the lower 
room, a counter in it, on which were ranged a great number of cold 
portions ready for distribution. Behind this counter the fragrant 
soup was steaming in deep cans, and the best-cooked of potatoes 
were fished out of similar receptacles. Nothing to eat was touched 
with the hand. Every waitress had her own tables to attend to. 
As soon as she saw a new customer seat himself at one of her tables, 
she took from the counter all his dinner— his soup, potatoes, meat, 
and pudding— piled it up dexterously in her two hands, set it be- 
fore him, and took his ticket. This serving of the whole dinner at 
once had been found greatly to simplify the business of attendance, 
and was also popular with the customers: who were thus enabled to. 
vary the meal by varying the routine ot dishes: beginning with soup 
to-day, putting soup in the middle to-morrow, putting soup at tUo 
end the day after to-morrow, and ringing similar changes on meat 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 




and pudding. The rapidity with which every new comer got served' 
was remarkable; and the dexterity with which the waitresses (quite 
new to the art a month before) discharged their duty was as agree- 
able to see as the neat smartness with which they wore their dress 
and had <iressed their hair. 

If 1 seldom saw better waiting, so 1 certainly never ate better 
meat, potatoes, or pudding. And the soup was an honest and stout 
soup, with rice and barley in it and “ little matters tor the teeth to 
touch,” as has been observed to me by my friend below-staiis 
already quoted. The dinner service, too, was neither conspicuously 
hideous for High Art, nor for Low Art, but was of a pleasant and 
pure appearance. Concerning the viands and their cookery, one last 
remark. I dined at my club in Pall Mall aforesaid, a few days 
afterward, for exactly twelve times the money, and not half ns well. 

The company thickened after one o’clock struck, and changed 
pretty quickly. Although experience of the place had been so re- 
cently attainable, and although there was still considerable curiosity 
oul in the street and about the entrance, the general tone was as 
good as could be, and the customers fell easily into the ways of the 
place. It was clear to me. however, that they were there to have 
what they paid for, and to be on an independent fooling. To the 
best of my judgment, they might be patronized out of the building 
in a month. ^Vith judicious visiting, and by dint of being ques- 
tioned, read to, and talked at. they might even be got rid of (^for the 
next quarter of a century) in half the time. 

This disinterested and wise movement is fraught with so many 
wholesome changes in the lives of the working-people, and with so 
much good in the way of overcoming that suspicion which our own 
unconscious impertinence has engendered, that it is scarcely gracious 
to criticise details as yet; the rather because it is indisputable that 
the managers of the Whitechapel establishment most thoroughly 
feel that they are upon their honor with the customers, as to the 
minutest points of administration. But, although the American 
stoves cannot roast, they can surely boil one kind of meat as well 
as another, and need not always circumscribe their boiling talents 
within the limits of ham and beef. The most enthusiastic admirer 
of those substantials would probably not object to occasional incon- 
stancy in respect of pork and mutton : or, especially in cold weather,^ 
to a little innocent trifling with Irish stews, meat-pies, and toads-in- 
holes. Another drawback on the Whitechapel establishment is the 
absence of beer. Regarded merely as a question of policy, it is very 
impolitic, as having a tendency to send the working-man to the 
public-house, where gin is reported to be sold. But there is a much 
liigher ground on which this absence of beer is objectionable. It 
expresses distrust of the working-man. It is a fragment of that old 
mantle of patronage in which so many estimable Thugs, so darkly 
wandering up and down the moral world, are sworn to muffle him. 
Good beer is a good thing for him, he says, and he likes it; the 
Depot could give it him good, and he now gets iirbad. Why does 
the Depot not give it him good? Because he would get drunk. 
Why does the Depot not let him have a pint with his dinner, which 
would not make him drunk? Because he might have had another 
pint, or another two pints, before became. Now, this distrust is an 


166 THE rNCOMMERCIAL TKAYELER, 

affront, is exceedingly inconsistent with the confidence the managers 
express in their handbills, and is a timid stopping-short upon the 
straight highway. It is unjust and unreasonable, also. It is unjust, 
because it punishes the sober man for the vice of the drunken man. 
It is unreasonable, because any one at all experienced in such things 
knows that the drunken workman does not get drunk where he goes 
to eat and drink, but where he goes to drink— expressly to drink. 
To suppose that the working-man cannot state this question to him- 
self quite as plainly as 1 state it here, is to suppose that he is a baby, 
and is again to tell him, in the old wearisome, condescending, pat- 
ronizing way, that he must be goody-poody, and do as he is toldy- 
poldy, and "not be a manny-panny, or a voter -poter, but fold his 
lianciy-pandys, and be a cbildy-pildy. 

I found, from the accounts of the Whitechapel Self-Supporting 
Cooking Depot, that every article sold in it, even at the prices 1 have 
quoted, yields a certain small profit ! Individual speculators are of 
course already in the field, and are of course already appropriating 
the name. The classes for whose benefit the real depots are de- 
signed will distinguish between the two kinds of enterprise. 


XXIV. 

CHATHAM DOCKYARD. 

There are some small out-of-the-way landing-places on the 
Thames and the Medway", where 1 do much of my summer idling. 
Eunning water is favorable to day dreams, and a strong tidal river 
is the best of running water for mine. I like to watch the great 
ships standing out to sea or coming home richly laden, the active 
little steamtugs confidently puffing with them to and from the sea 
horizon, the fieet of barges that seem to have plucked their brown 
and russet sails from the ripe trees in the landscape, the heavy old 
colliers, light in ballast, floundering down before the tide,' the light 
screw t>arks and schooners imperiously holding a straight course 
while the others patiently tack and go about, the yachts with their 
tiny hulls and great white sheets of canvas, the little sailing-boats 
bobbing to and fro on their errands of pleasure w business, and— 
as it is the nature of little people to do — making a prodigious fuss 
about their small affairs. Watching these objects, 1 still am under 
no obligation to think about them, or even so much as to see them, 
unless it perfectly suits my humor. As little am 1 obliged to hear 
the plash and flop of the tide, the ripple at my feet, the clinking 
windlass afar oft, or the humming steam-ship paddles further away 
yet. These, with the creaking little jetty on which 1 sit, and the 
gaunt high-water marks and low-water marks in the mud, and the 
broken causeway, and the broken bank, and the broken stakes and 
piles leaning forward as if they were vain of their personal appear- 
ance, and looking for their reflection in the water, will melt into 
any train of fancy. Equally adaptable to any purpose, or to none, 
are the pasturing sheep and kine upon the marshes, the gulls that 
wheel and dip around me, the crows (well out of gun-shot) going 
home from the rich harvest- fields, the heron that has been out a fish- 
ing, and looks as melancholy, up there in the sky, as if it hadn’t 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


U7 

agreed with him. Everything within the range of the senses will, 
by tlie aid of the running water, lend itself to everything beyond 
that range, and work into a drowsy whole, not unlike a kind of 
tune, but for which there is no exact definition. 

One of these landing-places is near an old fort (1 can see the Nore 
Light from it with my pocket-glass), from which fort mj^steriously 
emerges a boy, to whom 1 am much indebted for additions to my 
scanty stock of knowledge. He is a young boy, with an intelligent 
face burnt to a dust color by the summer sun, and with crisp hair 
of the same hue. He is a l3oy in whom 1 have perceived nothing 
incompatible with habits of studious inquiry and meditation, unless 
an evanescent black eye (1 wasdelicate of inquiring how occasioned) 
should be so considered. To him am 1 indebted for ability to 
identify a Custom-House boat at any distance, and for acquaintance 
with all the forms and ceremonies observed by a homeward-bound 
Indiaman coming up the river, when the Custom-House officers gO' 
aboard her. But for him, 1 ipight never have heard of the “ dumb 
ague,” respecting which malady 1 am now learned. Had I never 
sat at his feet, I might have finished my mortal career, and never 
known that when 1 see a white horse on a barge’s sail, that barge 
is a lime barge. For precious secrets in reference to beer am t like- 
wise beholden to him, involving warning against the beer of a cer- 
tain establishment, by reason of its having turned sour through fail- 
ure in point of demand: though m}'’ young sage is not of opinion 
that similar deterioration has befallen the a.le. He has also enlight- 
ened me touching the mushrooms of the marshes, and has gently 
reproved my ignorance in having supposed them to be impregnated 
with salt. His manner of imparting information is thoughtful, and 
appropriate to the scene. As he reclines beside me, he pitches into 
the river a little stone or piece of grit, and then delivers himself 
oracularly, as though he spoke out of the center of the spreading 
circle that, it makes in the water. He never improves my mind 
without observing this formula. 

’W ith the wise boy — whom 1 know by no other name than the 
Spirit of the Fort — 1 recently consorted on a breezy day, when the 
river leaped about us and was full of life. 1 had seen the sheaved 
corn carr 3 dng in the golden fields as I came down to the river; and 
the rosy fanner, watching his laboring men in the saddle on his cob, 
had told me how he had reaped his two hundred and sixty acres of 
long'Strawed corn last week, and how a better week’s work he had 
never done in all his days. Peace and abundance were on the 
country-side in beautiful forms and beautiful colors, and the harvest 
seemed even to be sailing out to grace the never-reaped sea in yellow 
laden barges that mellowed the distance. 

It was on this occasion that the Spirit of the Fort, directing his 
remarks ta a certain floating iron battery lately lying in that reach 
of the river, enriched my mind with his opinion on naval archi- 
tecture, and informed me that he would like to be an engineer. I 
found him up to everything that is done in the contracting line by 
Messrs. Peto & Brassey — cunning in the article of concrete— mellow 
in the matter of iron — great on the subject of gunnery. When he 
spoke of pile-driving and sluice-making, he left me not a leg to 
stand on, and I can never sufficiently acknowledge his forbearance 


1G8 ► THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

with me in my disabled state. While he thus discoursed, he several 
times directed" his eyes to one distant quarter of the landscape, and 
spoke with vas:ue, mysterious awe of “ the Yard.” Pondering his 
lessons after we had parted, 1 bethouffht me that the Yard was one 
of our large public Dockyards, and that it lay hidden among the 
orops down in the dip behind the windmills, as if it modestly kept 
itself out of view in peaceful times, and sought to trouble no man. 
Taken with this modesty, on the part of the Yard, 1 resolved to im- 
prove the Yard's acquaintance. 

My good opinion of the Yard’s retiring character was not dashed 
by nearer approach. It resounded with the noise of hammers beat- 
ing upon iron; and the great sheds or slips, under which the mighty 
men-of-war are built, loomed business-like when contemplated from 
the opposite side of the river. % For all that, however, the Yard 
made no display, but kept itself snug under hill-sides of corn-fields, 
hop-gardens, and orchards; its great chimneys smoking with a 
quiet — almost a lazy — air, like giants^moking tobacco; and the great 
Shears, moored off it, looking meekly and inoffensively out of pro- 
portion, like the Girafte of the machinery creation. The store of can- 
non on the neighboring gun-wharf had an innocent toy-like appear- 
ance, and the one red-coated sentry on duty over them was a mere 
toy figure, with a clockwork movement. As the hot sun-light 
sparkled on him, he might have passed tor the identical little man 
who had the little gun, and whose bullets they were made of lead, 
lead, lead. 

Crossing the river and landing at the Stairs, where a drift of chips 
and weed had been trying to land before me, and had not succeeded, 
but had got into a corner instead, 1 found the very street posts to 
be cannon, and the architectural ornaments to be shells. And "so I 
came to the Yard, which was shut up tight and strong with great 
folded gates, like an enormous patent safe. These gates devouring 
me, 1 became digested into the Yard; and it had, at first, a clean- 
swept, holiday air, as if it had given over work until next war- 
time. Though, indeed, a quantity of hemp for rope was tumbling 
out of storehouses, even there, which would hardly be Iging like 
so much hay on the white stones if the Yard were as placid as it 
pretended. 

Ding, Clash, Dong,- Bang, Boom, Rattle, Clash, Bang, Clink, 
Bang, Dong, Bang, Clatter, bang bang BANG! What on earth 
is this? This is, or soon will be, the “ Achilles,” iron armor-plated 
ship. Twelve hundred men are working at her now; twelve hun- 
dred men working on stages over her sides, over her bows, over her 
stern, under her keel, between her decks, down in her hold, within 
her and without, crawling and creeping into the finest curves of her 
lines where rer it is possible for men to twist. Twelve hundred 
hammerers, measurers, calkers, armorers, forgers, smiths, ship- 
wrights ; twelve hundred dingers, dashers, dongers, rattlers, clinkers, 
bangers bangers bangers! Yet all this stupendous uproar around 
the rising ‘‘ Achilles ” is as nothing to the reverberations with which 
the perfected “Achilles” shall resound upon the dreadful day 
when the full work is in hand for which this is but note of prepara- 
tion — the day when the scuppers, that are now fitting like great dry 
thirsty conduit-pipes, shall run red. All these busy figures between- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


IGD 


decks, dimly seen bending at their work in smoke and fire, are as 
nothing to the figures that shall do work here of another kind, in 
smoke and fire, that day. These steam-worked engines alongside, 
helping the ship by traveling to and fro, and wafting tons of iron, 
plates about, as though the.y were so many leaves of trees, would be 
rent limb from limb if they stood by here for a minute then. Ta 
think that this “Achilles,” monstrous compound of iron tank 
and oaken chest, can ever swim or roll! To think that any force of 
wind and wave could ever break her! To think that wherever 1 
see a glowing red-hot iron point thrust out of her side from within 
—as 1 do now, there, and there, and there!— and two watching men 
on a stage without, with bared arms and sledge-hammers, strike at 
it fiercely, and repeat their blows until it is black and fiat, I see a 
rivet being driven home, of which there are many in every iron 
plate, and thousands upon thousands in the ship! To think that 
the difficulty 1 experience in appreciating the ship’s size, when I am 
on board, arises from her being a series of iron tanks and oaken 
chests, so that internally she is ever finishing and ever beginning, 
and half of her might be smashed, and yet the remaining half suffice 
and be sound! Then, to go over the side again, and down among 
the ooze and wet to the bottom of the dock, in the depths of the 
subterranean forest of dog-shores and stays that hold her up, and 
to see the immense mass bulging out against the upper light, and 
tapering down toward me, is, with great pains and much clamber- 
ing, to arrive at an impossibility of realizing that this is a ship at all, 
and to become possessed by the fancy that it is an enormous immov- 
able edifice set up in an ancient amphitheater (say, that at Verona), 
and almost filling it! Yet what would even these things be with- 
out the tributary workshops and the mechanical powers for pierc- 
ing the iron plates— four inches and a half thick— for rivets, shaping; 
them under hydraulic pressure to the finest tapering turns of the 
ship’s lines, and paring them away, with knives shaped like the 
beaks of strong and cruel birds, to the nicest requirements of the 
design? These machines of tremendous force, so easily directed by 
one attentive face and presiding hand, seem to me to have in them; 
something of the retiring character of the Yard. “ Obedient mon- 
ster, please to bite this mass of iron through and through, at equal 
distances, where these regular chalk-marks are, all round.” Monster 
looks at its work, and, lifting its ponderous head, replies, “ I don’t 

particularly want to do it; but if it must be done !” The solid 

metal wriggles out hot, from the monster’s crunching t»oth, and it 
is done. “ Dutiful monster, observe this other mass of iron. It is 
required to be pared away, according to this delicately lessen- 
ing and arbitrary line, which please to look at.” Monster (who has 
been in a reverie) brings down its blunt head, and, much in the 
manner of Doctor Johnson, closely looks along the line— very 
closely, being somewhat near-sighted. “ I don’t particularly want 
to do it ; but if it must be done !” Monster takes an other near- 

sighted look, takes aim, and the tortured piece writhes off, and falls, 
a hot tight-twisted snake,, among the ashes. The making of the 
rivets is merely a pretty round game, played by a man and a boy, 
who put red-hot barley-sugar in a Pope Joan board, and immedi- 
ately rivets fall out of window; but the toue of the great maebinea 


170 


THE UXCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 


is the tone of the crreat Yard and the great country; ‘‘ 'We don’t 
particularly want to do it; but if it must be done !” 

How such a prodigious mass as the “ Achilles ” can ever be held 
by such comparatively little anchors as those intended for her, and 
lying near her here, is a mystery of seamanship which 1 will refer 
to the wise boy. For my own part, 1 should as soon have thought 
of tethering an elephant to a tent-peg, or the larger hippopotamus 
in the Zoological Gardens to my shirt-pin. Yonder in the river, 
alongside a hulk, lie two of this ship’s hollow iron masts. Thei/ are 
large enough for the eye, I find, and so are all her other appliances. 
I wonder why only her anchors look small. 

I have no present time to think about it, for I am going to see the 
Workshops where they fiiake all the oars used in the British Navy. 
A pretty large pile of building, I opine, and a pretty long job! As 
to the building, 1 am soon disappointed, because the worU is all 
done in one loft. And as to a long job— what is this? Two rather 
large mangles, with a swarm of butterflies hovering over them? 
What can there be in the mangles that attracts butterflies? 

Drawing nearer, I discern that these are not mangles, but intricate 
machines, set with knives and saws and planes, which cut smooth 
and straight here, and slantwise there, and now cut such a depth, 
and now miss cutting altogether, according to the predestined re- 
quirements of the pieces.of wood that are pushed on below them; 
oach of which pieces is to be an oar, and is roughly adapted to that 
purpose before it lakes its final leave of far-ofl: forests, and sails 
for England, Likewise 1 discern that the butterflies are not true 
butterflies, but wooden shavings, which, being spurted up from the 
wood by the violence of the machinery, and kept in rapid and not 
«qual movement by the impulse of its rotation on the air, flutter and 
#.play, and. rise and fall, and conduct themselves as like butterflies as 
heart could wish. Suddenly the noise and motion cease, and the 
butterflies drop dead. An oar has been made since I came in, V 7 ant- 
ing the shaped handle. As quickly as I can follow it with my eye 
and thought, the same oar is carried to a turning lathe. A whirl 
and a Nick! Handle made. Oar finished. 

The exquisite beauty and efficiency of this machinery need no illus- 
tration, but happen to have a pointed illustration to-day. A pair 
of oars of unusual size chance to be wanted for a special purpose, 
and they have to be made by hand. Side by side with the subtle 
and facile machine, and side by side with the fast-growing pile of 
oars on the floor, a man shapes out these special oars with an ax. 
Attended by no butterflies, and chipping and dinting, by compari- 
son as leisurely as if he were a laboring Pagan getting them ready 
against his decease at threescore-and-ten, to take with him as a 
present to Charon for his boat, the man (aged about thirty) plies his 
task. The machine would make a regulation oar while the man 
wipes his forehead. The man might be buried in a* mound made 
ot the strips of thin broad wooden ribbon torn from the wood 
whirled into oars as the minutes fall from the clock, before he had 
done a forenoon’s work vn'th his ax. 

Passing from this wonderful sight to the Ships again — for my 
heart, as to the Yard, is wdiere the ships are— 1 notice certain un- 
finished wooden wails left seasoning on the stocks, pending the solu- 


THE UXCOMMEHCIAL TRAVELEK, 171 

tion of the merits of the wood and iron question, and having an 
air of biding their time with surly comidence. The names of these 
worthies are set up beside them, together with tlieir capacity in 
ffuns— a custom highly conducive to ease and satisfaction in social 
intercourse, if it could be adapted to mankind. By a plank more 
gracefully pendulous than substantial, 1 make bold to go aboard a 
transport ship (iron screw) just sent in from the contractor’s yard to 
be inspected and passed. She is a very gratifying experience, in 
the simplicity and humanity of her arrangements for troops, in her 
provision for light and air and cleanliness, and in’ her care for 
women and children. It occurs tome, as I explore her, that 1 would 
require a handsome sum of money to go aboard her, at midnight by 
the Dockyard bell, and stay aboard alone till morning; for surely 
she must be haunted by a crowd of ghosts of obstinate old marti- 
nets; mournfully flapping their cherubic epaulets over the changed 
times. Though still we may learn, from the astounding ways and 
means in our Yard now, more highly than ever to respect the fore- 
fathers who got to sea, and fought the sea, and held the sea, without 
them. This remembrance putting me in the best of tempers with 
an old hulk, rery green as to her copper, and generally dim and 
patched, I pull off my hat to her. 'Which salutation a callow and 
downy-faced young officer of Engineers, going by at the moment, 
perceiving, appropriates— and to which he is most heartily welcome, 
1 am sure. 

Having been torn to pieces (in imagination) by the steam circular 
saws, perpendicular saws, horizontal saws, and saws of eccentric 
action, I come to the sauntering part of my expedition, and conse- 
quently to the core of my uncommercial pursuits. 

Everywhere, as I saunter up and down the Yard, 1 meet with 
tokens of its quiet and retiring character. There is a gravity upon 
its red brick offices and bouses, a staid pretense of having nothing 
worth mentioning to do, an avoidance of display, which 1 never saw 
out of England. The white stones of the pavement present no other 
trace of “ Achilles ” and his twelve hundred banging men (not one 
of whom strikes an attitude) than a few occasional echoes. But for 
a whisper in the air suggestive of sawdust and shavings, the oar- 
making and the saws of many movements might be miles away. 
Down below here is the great reservoir of water where timber is 
steeped in various temperatures, as a part of its seasoning process. 
Above it, on a tramroad supported by pillars, is a Chinese Enchant- 
er’s Car, which Ashes the logs up, when sufficiently steeped, and 
rolls smoothly away with them to stack them. When I was a child 
(the Yard being then familiar to' me) 1 used to think that 1 should 
like to play at Chinese Enchanter, and to have that apparatus placed 
at my disposal for the purpose by a beneficent country. I still 
think that I should rather like to try the effect of writing a book in 
it. Its retirement is complete, and to go gliding to and fro among 
the stacks of timber would be a convenient kind of traveling in for- 
eign countries— among the forests of Norlh America, the sodden 
Honduras swamps, the dark pine woods, the Norwegian forests, and 
the tropical heats, rainy seasons, and thunder-storms. The costly 
store of limber is stacked and stowed away in sequestered places, 
with the pervading avoidance of flourish or effect. It makes as lit- 


172 THE rXCOMMERClAL TRAVELER. 

tie of itself as possible, and calls to no one, “ Come and look at 
me.” And yet it is picked out from the trees of the world; picked 
out for length, picked out for breadth, picked out for straightness, 
picked out for crookedness, chosen with an eye to every need of 
ship and boat. Strangely-twisted pieces lie about, precious in the 
sight of shipwrights. Sauntering through these groves, I come 
upon an open glade where workmen are examining some timber re- 
cently delivered. Quite a pastoral scene, with a background of 
river and windmill and no more like War tliah the American States 
are at present like a Union. 

Sauntering among the ropemaking, lam spun into a state of bliss- 
ful indolence, wherein my rope of life seems to be so untwisted by 
the process as that I can see back to very early days indeed, when 
my bad dreams — they were frightful, though my more mature un- 
derstanding has never made out why — were of an interminable sort 
of rope-making, with long minute filaments for strands, which, 
when they were spun home together close to my e 5 ’^eB, occasioned 
screaming. Next, 1 walk among the quiet lofts of '’stores— of sails, 
spars, rigging, ships’ boats — determined to believe that somebody 
in authority wears a girdle, and bends beneath the weight of a mass- 
ive bunch of keys, and that' when such a thing is wanted, he comes 
telling his keys, like Blue Beard, and opens such a door. Im- 
passive as the long lofts look, let the electric battery send down the 
word, and the shutters and doors shall fly open, and such a fleet ot 
armed ships, under steam and under sail, shall burst forth as will 
charge the old Medway — where the merry Stuart let the Dutch 
come, while his not so meriy sailors starved in the streets— with 
something worth looking at to carry to the sea. Thus I idle round 
to the Medway again, where it is now flood tide; and I find the 
river evincing a strong solicitude to force a way into the dry dock, 
where ‘‘ Achilles ” is waited on by the twelve hundred bangers, 
with the intent to bear the whole away before they are ready. 

To the last, the Yard puts a quiet face upon it; for I make my 
way to the gates through a little quiet grove of trees, shading the 
quaintest of Dutch landing-places, where the leaf-speckled shadow 
of a shipwright just passing away at the further end might be the 
shadow of Russian Peter himself. So, the doors of the great patent 
safe at last close upon me, and 1 take boat again: somehow, think- 
ing, as the oars dip, of braggart Pistol and his brood, and of the 
quiet monsters of the Yard, with their, ” We don’t particularly want 
to do it; but if it must be done !” Scrunch. 


XXV. 

IN THE FRENCH-FLEMISH COUNTRY. 

” It is neither a bold nor a diversified country,” said I to myself, 
” this country which is three quarters Flemish, and a quarter 
French j yet it has its attractions, too. Though great lines of rail- 
way traverse it, the trains leave it behind, and go puffing off to Paris 
^ind the South, to Belgium and Germany, to the Northern Sea-Coast 
of France, and to England, and merely smoke it a little in passing. 
Then 1 don’t know it, and that is a good reason for being here; and 


THE rHCOHMEKCIAL TRAVELER, 


173 


I can’t pronounce half the long queer names I see inscribed over 
the shops, and that is another good reason for being; here, since I 
sutiily ought to learn how.” In short, I was “ here,” and I wanted 
an excuse for not going away from here, ana I made it to my satis- 
faction, and stayed here. 

What part in my decision was borne by Monsieur P. Salcy is of 
no moment, though 1 own to encountering that gentleman’s name 
on a red bill on the wall before I made up^my mind. Monsieur F. 
Salcy, ” par permission de M. le Maire,” had established his theater 
in the whitewashed Hotel de Ville, on the steps of which illustrious 
edifice I stood. And Monsieur P. Salcy, privileged director of 
such theater, situate in “the first theatrical arrondissernent of the 
department of the North,” invited French-Flemish mankind to 
come and partake of the intellectual banquet provided by his family 
of dramatic artists, fifteen subjects in nuinber. “ La "Famille P. 
Salcy, composee d’artistes dramatiques, au nombre de 15 sujets.” 

Neither a bold nor a diversified country, 1 say again, and withal 
an untidy country, but pleasant enough to ride in, when the paved 
roads over the flats and through the hollows are not too deep in 
black mud. A country so sparely inhabited, that 1 wonder where 
the peasants who till and sow and reap the ground can possibly 
dwell, and also by what invisible balloons they are conveyed from 
their distant homes into the fields at sunrise, and back again at sun- 
set. The occasional few poor cottages and farms in this region 
surely cannot atlord shelter to the numbers necessary to the cultiva- 
tion, albeit the work is done so very deliberately, that on one long 
harvest day 1 have seen, in twelve miles, about twice as many men 
and women (all told) reaping and binding. Yet have 1 seen more 
cattle, more sheep, more pigs, and all in better case, than where 
there is purer French spoken, and also better ricks-— round, swelling, 
pegtop ricks, well thatched: not a shapeless brown heap, like the 
toast of a Giant’s toast- and- water, pinned to the earth with one of 
the skewers out of his kitchen. A good custom they have about 
here, likewise, of prolonging the sloping tiled roof of farm or cot- 
tage, so that it overhangs three or four feet, carrying ofi the wet, 
and making a good drying-place wherein to hang up^^lierbs, or im- 
plements, or what not. A better custom than the popular one of 
keeping the refuse-heap and puddle close before the house-door: 
which, although 1 paint my dwelling never so brightly blue (and it 
cannot be too blue for me hereabouts), will bring fever inside my 
door. Wonderful poultry of the French-Flemish country, why lake 
the trouble to be poultry? "Why not stop short at eggs in the rising 
generation, and die out and have done with it? Parents of chickens 
have I seen this day, followed by their wretched young families, 
scratching nothing out of the mud with an air— tottering about on 
legs so scragg}^ and weak, that the valiant word drum-slicks be- 
comes a mockery when applied to them| and the crow of the lord 
and master has been a mere dejected case of croup. Carts have 1 
seen, and other agricultural instruments, unwieldy, dislocated, mon- 
strous. Poplar trees by the thousand fringe the fields and fringe 
the end of the flat landscape, so that 1 feel, looking straight on be- 
fore me, as if, when 1 pass the extremest fringe on the low horizon, 

I shall tumble over into space. Little whitewashed black holes of 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


17 i 

chapels, with barred doors and Flemish inscriptions, abound at road- 
side corners, and otten they are garnished with a sheat of wooden 
crosses, like children’s swords; or, in their default, some holldwold 
tree, with a saint roosting in it, is similarly decorated, or a pole 
with a very diminutive saint enshrined aloft in a sort of sacred 
pigeon house. Not that we are deficient in such decoration in the 
town here, for, over at the church yonder, outside the building, is 
a scenic representation of the Crucifixion, built up with old bricks 
and stones, and made out with painted canvas and wooden figures: 
the whole surmounting the dusty skull of some holy personage (per- 
haps), shut up behind a little ashy iron grate, as if it were origin- 
ally put there to be cooked, and the fire had long gone out. A 
windmilly country this, though the windmills are so damp and 
rickety that they nearly knock themselves off their legs at every 
turn of their sails, and creak in loud complaint. A weaving coun- 
try, too, for in Ihe wayside cottages the loom goes wearily — rattle 
and click, rattle and click — and, looking in, 1 see the poor weaving 
peasant, man or woman, bending at the work, while the child, 
working too, turns a little handwheel put upon the ground to suit 
its height. An unconscionable monster, the loom in a small dwell- 
ing asserting himself ungenerously as the bread-winner, straddling 
over the children’s straw beds, cramping the family in space and 
aim, and making himself generally objectionable and tyrannical. 
He is tributary, loo, to ugly mills and factories and bleaching- 
grounds rising out of the sluiced fields in an abrupt bare way, dis- 
daining, like himself, to be ornamental or accommodating. Sur- 
rounded by these things, here 1 stood on the steps of the Hotel de 
Vllle, persuaded to remain by the P. Salcy Family, fifteen dramatic 
subjects strong. 

There was 9 , Fair besides. The double persuasion being irresisti- 
ble, and my sponge being left behind at the last Hotel, I made the 
tour of the little town to buy another. In the small sunny shops — 
mercers, opticians, and druggist-grocers, wdth here and there an em- 
porium of religious images — the gravest of old spectacled Flemish 
husbands and wives sat contemplating one another across bare 
counters, while the wasps, who seemed to have taken military pos- 
session of the town, and to have placed it under wasp-martial law, 
executed warlike maneuvers in the windows. Other shops the 
wasps had entirely to themselves, and nobody cared and nobody 
came when I beat with a five-franc piece upon the board of custom. 
What 1 sought was no more to be found than if I had sought a nug- 
get of Californian gold: so 1 went, spongeless, to pass the evening 
with the Family P. Salcy. 

The members of the Family P. Salcy were so fat and so like one 
another — fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, and aunts — 
that 1 think the local audience were much confused about the plot 
of the piece under representation, and to the last expected that 
everybody must turn out to be the long lost relative of everybody 
else. The theater was established on the top story of the Hotel de 
Ville, and was approached by a long bare staircase, whereon, in an 
airy situation, one of the P. Salcy Family — a stout gentleman, im- 
perfectly repressed by a belt — took the money. Tliis occasioned the 
greatest excitement of the evening ; for, no sooner did the curtain 


THE UNCOMMEIiCIAL TliAVELER. 175 

*-ise on the introductory Vaudeville, and reveal in the person of the 
\oun<^ lover (singing a very short song with his eyebrows) appar- 
ently the very same identical stout gentleman, imperfectly repressed 
hy a belt, than everybody rushed out to the paying-place to ascertain 
whether he could possibly have put on that dress-coat, that clear 
complexion, and those arched black vocal eyebrows, in so short a 
space of time. It then became manifest that this was another stout 
gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt; to whom, before the 
spi'ctators had recovered their presence of mind, entered a third 
stout gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt, exactly like him. 
These two “ subjects,” making, with the money-taker, three of the 
announced fifteen, fell into conversation louching a charming young 
widow; who, presently appearing, proved to be a stout lady alto- 
gether irrepressible by any means — quite a parallel case to the 
American Negro — fourth of the fifteen subjects, and sister of the 
fifth, who presided over the check department. In good time the 
whole of the fifteen subjects were dramatically presented, and we 
had the inevitable Ma M6re, Ma M^re! and also the inevitable 
malediction d’un p^re, and likewise the inevitable Marquis, and also 
the inevitable provincial young man, weak-minded, but faithful, 
wlio followed Julie to Paris, and cried and laughed and choked all 
at once. The story was wrought out with the help of a virtuous 
spinning-wheel in the beginning, a vicious set of diamonds in the 
middle, and a rheumatic blessing (which arrived by post) from Ma 
M^re toward the end; the whole resulting in a small sword in the 
body of one of the stout gentlemen imperfectly repressed by a belt, 
fifty thousand francs per annum, and a decoration to the other stout 
gentleman imperfectly repressed by a belt, and an assurance from 
-everybody to the provincial young man that if he were not su- 
premely happy — which he seemed to have no reason whatever for 
being— he ought to be. This afforded him a final opportunity of 
crying and laughing and choking all at once, and sent the audience 
liome sentimenatlly delighted. Audience more attentive or better 
behaved there could not possibly be, though the places of second 
rank in the Theater of the Family P. Salcy were sixpence each in 
English money, and the places of first rank a shilling. How the 
fifteen subjects ever got so fat upon it, the kind Heavens know. 

What gorgeous china figures of knights and ladies, gilded till 
they gleamed again, 1 might have bought at the Fair for the garni- 
ture of my home, if I had been a Frencli-Flemisli peasant, and had 
had the money! What shining coffee-cups and saucers I might 
have won at the turntables, if I had had the luck! Ravishing per- 
fumery also, and sweetmeats, 1 might have speculated in, or I 
mieht have fired for prizes at a multitude of little dolls in niches, 
and might have hit the doll of dolls, and won francs and fame. Or, 
being a French-Flemish youth, I might have been drawn in a hand- 
cart by my compeers, to tilt for municipal rewards at the water- 
quintain; which, unless I sent my lance clean through the ring, 
emptied a full bucket over me; to fend oft which the competitors 
wore grotesque old scarecrow hats. Or, being French-Flemish 
man or woman, boy or girl, I might have circled all night on my 
hobby- horse in a stately cavalcade of hobby-horses four abreast, in- 
terspersed with triumphal cars, going round and round and round 


176 


THE UHCOHMEllCIAL TRAVELER. 


and round, we the goodly company singing a ceaseless chorus to 
the music of the barrel-organ, drum and cymbals. On the whole, 
not more monotonous than the Rina; in Byde Park, London, and 
much merrier; for when do the circling company sing chorus there 
t& the barrel-organ, when do the ladies embrace their horses round 
the neck, with both arms, when do the gentlemen fan the ladies 
with the tails of their gallant steeds. On all these revolving de- 
lights, and on their own especial lamps and Chinese lanterns revolv- 
ing with them, the thoughtful weaver-face brightens, and the Hotel 
de Ville sheds an illuminated line of gas-liglU; while above it, the 
Eagle of France, gas-outlined and apparently afflicted with the pre- 
vailing infirmities that have lighted on the poultry, is in a very un- 
decided state of policy, and as a bird, moulting. Flags flutter all 
around. Such is the prevailing gayety that the keeper of the prison 
sits on the stone steps outside the prison door, to have a look at the 
world that is not locked up; while that agreeable retreat, the wine 
shop opposite to the prison in the prison alley (its sign La Tran- 
quillite, because of its charming situation), resounds with the voices 
of the shepherds and shepherdesses wlio resort there this festive 
night. And it reminds me that, only this afternoon, I saw a shep- 
herd in trouble, tending this way over the jagged stones of a neigh- 
boring street. A magnificent sight it was to behold him in his 
blouse, a feeble little jog-trot rustic, swept along by the wind of 
two immense gendarmes, in cocked-hats for which the street was 
hardly wide enough, each carrying a bundle of stolen property 
that would not have held his shourder knot, and clanking a saber 
that dwarfed the prisoner. 

“ Messieurs et mesdames, I present to you at this Fair, as a mark 
of my confidence in the people of this so-renowned town, and as an 
act of homage to their good sense and fine taste, the Ventriloquist, 
the Ventriloquist! Further, messieurs et mesdames, I present to 
you the Face-Maker, the Physiognomist, the great Changer of 
Countenances, who transforms the features that Heaven has be- 
stowed upon him into an'.endless succession of surprising and extraor- 
dinary visages, comprehending, messieurs et mesdamea. all the 
contortions, energetic and expressive, of which the human face is 
capable, and all the passioqs of the human heart, as Love, Jealousy, r 
Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair! Hi, hi! Ho, ho! Lu In! 
Come in!” To this effect, with an occasional smite upon a sonorous 
kind of lambourine— bestowed with a will, as it it represented the 
people who tvon’t come in — holds forth a man of lofty and severe 
demeanor; a man in stately uniform, gloomy with the knowledge 
he possesses of the inner secrets of the booth. ” Come in, come in! 
Your opportunity presents itself to-night; to-morrow it will be gone 
forever. To-m.orrow morning by the Express Train the railroad will 
reclaim the Ventriloquist and tlie Face-Maker! Algeria will reclaim 
the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker! Yes! For the honor of 
their country, they have accepted propositions of a magnitude in- 
credible, to appear in Algeria. See them for tlm last time before 
their departure! AVe go to commence on the instant. Hi hi! Ho 
hoi Lulu! Come in! Take the money that now ascends, ma- 
dame; but, after that, no more, for we commence! Come in!” 

^Nevertheless, the eyes both of the gloomy speaker, and of 


t 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 17^ 

madame receivinj? sous in a muslin bower, survey the crowd pretty 
sharply after the ascending money has ascended, to detect any lin- 
gering sous at the turning point. “ Come in, come in! Is there any 
more money, madame, on the point of ascending? If so, we wait for 
it. If not, we commence!” The orator looks back over his shoul- 
der to say it, lashing the spectators with the conviction that he be- 
holds, through the folds *of the drapery into which he is about to- 
plunge, the Ventriloquist and the Face-Maker. Several sous burst 
out of pockets and ascend. ” Come up, then, messieurs!” exclaims 
madame in a shrill voice, and beckoning with a bejeweled finger. 
“Come up! Time presses. Monsieur has commanded that they 
commence!” Monsieur dives into his Interior, and the last half- 
dozen of us follow. His Interior is comparatively severe; his Ex- 
terior also. A true Temple of Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, 
a small table, with two moderator lamps hanging over it, and an 
ornamental looking-glass let into the wall. Monsieur in uniform, 
gets behind the table, and surveys us with disdain, his forehead be- 
coming diabolically intellectual under the moderators. .‘‘Mes- 
sieurs et mesdames, I present to you the Ventriloquist. He will 
commence with the celebrated Experience of the bee in the win- 
dow. The bee, apparently the veritable bee of Nature, will hover 
in the window and about the room. He will be with difficulty 
caught in the hand of Monsieur the Ventriloquist — he .will escape- 
lie will again hover — at length he will be recaptured by Monsieur 
the Ventriloquist, and will be with difficulty put into a bottle. 
Achieve, then. Monsieur!” Here the Proprietor is replaced behind 
the table by the Ventriloquist, who is thin and sallow, and of a 
weakly aspect. While the bee is in progress. Monsieur the Proprie- 
tor sits apart on a stool, immersed in dark and remote thought. The 
moment the bee is bottled, be stalks forward, eyes us gloomily as 
we applaud, and then announces, sternly waving his hand; ” The 
magnificent Experience of the child with the whooping cough!” The 
child disposed of, he starts up as before. ” The superb and extraor- 
dinary Experience of the dialogue between Monsieur Tatambour in 
his dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in the cellar; conclud- 
ing with the songsters of the grove, and the Concert of domes- 
tic Farmyard animals.” All this done, and well done. Monsieur 
the Venriloquist withdraws, and Monsieur the Face- Maker bursts 
in, as if his retiring room were a mile long instead of a yard. A 
corpulent little man in a large white waistcoat, with a comic coun- 
tenance, and with a wig in his hand. Irreverent disposition to laugh 
instantly checked by the tremendous gravity of the Face-Maker, 
who intimates in his bow that if we expect that sort of thing we are 
mistaken. A very little shaving-glass with a leg behind it is handed 
in, and placed on the table bemre the Face-Maker. ” Messieurs et 
mesdames, with no other assistance than this mirror and this wig, 1 
shall have the honor of showing you a thousand characters.” As. 
a preparation, the Face-Maker with both hands gouges himself, and 
turns his mouth inside out. He then becomes frightfully grave 
again, and says to the Proprietor, ” 1 am ready!” Proprietor stalks 
forth from baleful reverie, and announces ” The Young Conscript!” 
Face-Maker claps' his wig on, hind side before, looks in the glass, 
and appears above it as a conscript so very imbecile, and squinting 


178 THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 

SO extremely hard, that I should think the State would never get any 
good of him. Thunders of applause. Face-Maker dips behind the 
looking glass, brings his own hair forward, is himself again, is aw- 
fully grave. “ A distinguished inhabitant of the Faubourg St. Ger- 
main.” Face-Maker dips, rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed, 
toothless, slightly palsied, supernaturally piolite, evidently of noble 
birth. ” The oldest member of the Corps des Invalides on the fete 
day of his master.” Face-Maker dips, rises, wears the wig on one 
side, has become the feeblest military bore in existence, and (it is 
clear) would lie frightfully about his past achievements, if he were 
not confined to pantomime. ” The Miser!” Face-Maker dips, 
rises, clutches a bag, and every hair of the wig is on end to express 
that he lives in continual dread of thieves. ” The Genius of 
France!” Face-Maker dips, rises, wig pushed back and smoothed 
flat, little cocked hat (artfully concealed till now) put atop of it, 
Face-Maker’s white waistcoat much advanced, Face-Maker’s left- 
hand in bosom of white waistcoat, Face-Maker’s right hand behind 
his back. Thunders. This is the first of three positions of the 
Genius of France. In the second position, the Face-Maker takes 
snuff ? in the third, rolls up his right hand, and surveys illimitable 
armies through that pocket-glass. The Face-Maker then, by put- 
ting out his tongue, and wearing the wig nohow in particular, be- 
comes the Village Idiot. The most remarkable feature in the whole 
of his ingenious performance is, that whatever he does to disguise 
himself has the effect of rendering him rather more like himself 
than he was at first. 

There were peep-shows in this Fair, and I had the pleasure of 
recognizing several fields of glory with which I became well ac- 
quainted a year or two ago as Crimean battles, now doing duty as 
Mexican victories. The change was neatly effected by some extra 
smoking of the Russians, and by permitting the camp followers 
free range in the foreground to despoil the enemy of their uniforms. 
As no British troops had ever happened to be within sight when the 
artist took his original sketches, it followed fortunately that none 
were in the way now. 

The Fair wound up with a ball. Respecting the particular night 
of the week on which the ball took place, I decline to commit my- 
self; merely mentioning that it was held in a stable-yard so very 
close to the railway, that it is a mercy the locomotive did not set 
fire to it. (In Scotland I suppose it would have done so.) There, 
in a lent prettily decorated with looking-glasses and a myriad of toy 
flags, the people danced all night. It was not an expensive recrea- 
I ion, ihe price of a double ticket for a caval ier and lady being one-and- 
threepence in English money, and even of that small sum' fivepence 
was reclaimable for “ consommation:” which word I venture to 
translate into refreshments of no greater strength, at the strongest, 
than ordinary wine made hot, with sugar and lemon in it. It was 
a ball of great good-humor and of great enjoyment, though very 
many of the dancers must have been as poor as the fifteen sub- 
jects of the P. Salcy Family. 

In short, not having taken my own pet national pint pot with me 
to this Fair, I was very well satisfied with the measure of simple 
enjoyment that it poured into the dull French-Flemish country life. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


179 

How dull that is, 1 had an opportunity of considering when the Fair 
was over — when the tricolored flags were withdrawn from the win- 
dows of the houses on the Place where the Fair was held — when the 
windows were close shut, apparently until next Fair- time— when the 
Hotel de Ville had cut off its gas and put away its eagle— when the 
two pavers, whom 1 take to form the entire paving population of 
the town, were ramming down the stones which had been pulled up 
for the erection of decorative poles— when the jailer had slammed 
his gate, and sulkily locked himself in with his charges. But then, 
as I paced the ring which marked the track of the departed hobby- 
liorses of the market-place, pondering in my mind how long some 
hobby-horses do leave their tracks in public ways, and how diffi- 
cult they are to erase, my eyes were greeted with a goodly sight. 1 
beheld four male personages thoughtfully pacing the Place together 
in the sun-light, evidently not belonging to the town, and having^ 
upon them a certain loose cosmopolitan air of not belonging to any 
town. One was clad in a suit of white canvas, another in a cap 
and blouse, the third in an old military frock, the fourth in a shape- 
less dress that looked as if it had been made out of old umbrellas. 
All wore dust-colored shoes. My heart beat high; for, in those 
four male personages, although coraplexionless and eyebrowless, I 
beheld four subjects of the Family P. Salcy. Blue-bearded though 
they were, and bereft of the youthful smoothness of cheek which 
is imparted by what is termed in Albion a “ Whitechapel shave 
(and which is, in fact, whiting judiciously applied to the jaws with 
the palm of the hand), I recognized them. As I stood admiring, 
there emerged from the yard of a lowly cabaret the excellent Ma 
Mere, Ma Mere, with the words, “ The soup is served;” words 
which so elated the subject in the canvas suit, that when they all 
ran in to partake, he went last, dancing with his hands stuck angu- 
larly into the pockets of his canvas trousers, after the Pierrot man- 
ner. Glancing down the Yard, the last 1 saw of him was, that he 
looked in through a window (at the soup, no doubt) on one leg. 

Full of this pleasure, I shortly afterward departed from the 
town, little dreaming of an addition to my good fortune. But more 
was in reserve. 1 went by a train which was heavy with third-class 
carriages, full of young fellows, well guarded, who had drawn un- 
lucky numbers in the last conscription, and were on their way to a 
famous French garrison town, where much of the raw military 
material is worked up into soldiery. At the station they had been 
sitting abopt, in their threadbare homespun blue garments, with 
their poor little bundles under their arms, covered with dust and 
clay, and the various soils of France; sad enough at heart, most of 
them, but putting a good face upon it, and slapping their breasts 
and singing choruses on the smallest provocation; the gayer spirits 
shouldering half-loaves of black bread sjDeared upon their walking- 
sticks. As we w^ent along, they were audible at every station, 
chorusing wildly out of tune, and feigning the highest hilarity. 
After a while, however, they began to leave off singing, and to 
laugh naturally, while at intervals there mingled with their laughter 
the barking of a dog. Now, 1 had to alight short of their destina- 
tion, and as that stoppage of the train was attended with a quantity 
of horn blowing, bell ringing, and proclamation of what Messieurs 


180 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


les Voyageurs were to do, and were not to do, in order to reach 
their respective destinations, 1 had ample leisure to go forward on 
the platform to take a parting look at my recruits, whose heads 
were all out at window, and who were laughing like delighted 
children. Then 1 perceived that a large poodle with a pink nose, 
who had been their traveling companion and the cause of their 
mirth, stood on his hind legs presenting arms on the extreme verge 
of the platform, ready to salute them as the train went off. This 
poodle wore a military shako (it is unnecessary to add. very much 
on one side over one eye), a little military coat, and the regulation 
white gaiters. He was armed with a little musket and a little sword- 
bayonet, and he stood presenting arms in perfect attitude, with his 
unobscured eye on his master or superior officer, who stood by 
him. So admirable was his discipline, that, when the train moved, 
and he was greeted with the parting cheers of the recruits, and also 
with a shower of centimes, several ot which struck his shako, and 
had a tendency to discompose him, he remained stanch on his post 
until the train was gone He then resigned his arms to his officer, 
took off his shako by rubbing his paw over it, dropped on four legs, 
bringing his uniform coat into the absurdest relations with the 
■overarching skies, and ran about the platform in his white gaiters, 
wagging his tail to an exceeding great extent. It struck me that there 
was more waggery than this in the poodle, and that he knew that 
the recruits would neither get through their exercises, not get rid of 
their uniforms, as easily as he; revolving which in my thoughts, 
and seeking in my pockets some small money to bestow upon him, 
I casually directed my eyes to the face of his superior officer, and 
in him beheld the Face-Maker ! Though it was not the way to 
Algeria, but quite the reverse, the military poodle’s Colonel was 
the Face-Maker in a dark blouse, with a small bundle dangling 
•over his shoulder at the end of an umbrella, and taking a pipe from 
bis breast to smoke as he and the poodle went their m^’-sterious 
way. 


XXVI. 

MEDICINE MEN OP CIVILIZATION. 

My voyages (in paper boats) among savages often yield me mat- 
ter for reflection at home. Tt is curious to trace the savage in the 
civilized man, and to detect the hold of some savage customs on con- 
ditions of society rather boastful of being high above them. 

I wonder, is the Medicine Man of the North American Indians 
never to be got rid of, out of the North American country? He 
comes into my Wigwam on all manner of occasions, and with the 
absurdest “ Medicine.” I always find it extremely difficult, and I 
often find it simply impossible, to keep him out of my Wigwam. 
For his legal ” Medicine” he sticks upon his head the hair of quad- 
rupeds, and plasters the same with fat, and dirty white powder, and 
talks a gibberish quite unknown to the men and squaws of his tribe. 
For his religious ” Medicine” he puts on puffy white sleeves, little 
black aprons, large black waistcoats of a peculiar cut, collarless 
coats with Medicine button-boles, Medicine stockings and gaiters 


THE UJTCOHMERCIAL TRAVELER. 181 

and shoes, and tops the whole with a highly grotesque Medicinal 
hat. In one respect, to be sure, 1 am quite free from him. On oc- 
casions when the Medicine Men in general, together with a large 
number of the miscellaneous inhabitants of his village, both male 
and female, are presented to the principal Chief, his native “ Medi- 
cine” is a comical mixture of old odds and ends (hired of traders) 
and new things in antiquated shapes, and pieces of red cloth, of 
which he is particularly fond, and white and red and blue paint for 
the face. The irrationality of this particular Medicine culminates 
in a mock-battle rush, from which many of llie squaws are borne out 
much dilapidated. 1 need not observe how unlike this is to a Draw- 
ing-Room at St. James’s Palace. 

The Africau magician I find it very difficult to exclude from my 
Wigwam too. This creature takes cases of death and mourning 
under his supervision, and will frequently impoverish a whole 
family by his preposterous enchantments. He is a great eater and 
•drinker, and always conceals a rejoicing stomach under a grieving 
•exterior. His charms consist of an infinite quantity of worthless 
scraps, for which he charges very high. He impresses on the poor 
bereaved natives, that the more of his followers they pay to exhibit 
such scraps on their persons for an hour or two (though they never 
saw the deceased in their lives, and are put in high spirits by his de- 
cease), the more honorably and piously they grieve for the dead. 
The poor people submitting themselves to this conjuror, an expen- 
sive procession is formed, in which bits of sticks, feathers of birds, 
and a quantity of other unmeaning objects besmeared with black 
paint, are carried in a certain ghastly order of which no one under- 
stands the meaning, if it ever had any, to the brink of the grave, 
and are then brought back again. 

In the Tonga Islands everything is supposed to have a soul, so 
that when a hatchet is irreparably broken they say, *' His immortal 
pan has departed; he is gone to the happy hunting-plains.” This 
belief leads to the logical sequence that, when a man is buried, some 
of his eating and drinking vessels, and some of his warlike imple- 
ments, must be broken and buried with him. Superstitious and 
wrong, but surely a 'more respectable superstition than the hire of 
antic" scraps for a show that has no meaning based on any sincere 
belief. 

Let me halt on my Uncommercial road to throw a passing glance 
on some funeral solemnities that I have seen where IS orth American 
Indians, African Magicians, and Tonga Islanders are supposed not 
to be. 

Once 1 dwelt in an Italian City, where there dwelt with me for a 
while an Englishman of an amiable nature, great enthusiasm, and 
no discretion. This friend discovered a desolate stranger mourning 
over the unexpected death of one very dear to him, in a solitary 
cottage among the vineyards of an outlying village. The circum- 
stances of the bereavement were unusually distressing; and the sur- 
vivor, new to the peasants and the country, sorely needed help, be- 
ing alone with the remains. With some difllculty, but with the 
strong influence of a purpose at once gentle, disinterested, and deter- 
mined, my friend— Mr. Kindbeart— obtained access to the mourner, 
and undertook to arrange the burial. 


182 


THE UXCOMHERCIAL TRAVELER. 


There was a small Protestant cemetery near the citv walls, ami, 
as Mr. Kindheart came back to me, he turned into it and chose the 
spot. lie was always liighly flushed when rendering a service un- 
aided, and 1 knew that to make him happy I must keep aloof from 
his ministration. But whe#i at dinner he warmed with a good action 
of the day, and conceived the brilliant idea of comforting the 
mourner with “ an English funeral,” 1 ventured to intimate that I 
thought that institution, which was not absolutely sublime at home, 
might prove a failure in Italian hands. However, Mr. Kindheart 
w^as so enraptured with his conception, that he presently wrote 
down into the town requesting the attendance, with to-morrow’s 
earliest light, of a certain little upholsterer. This upholsterer was 
famous for speaking the unintelligible local dialect (his own) in a 
far more unintelligible manner than any other man alive. 

When from my bath next morning I overheard Mr. Kindheart 
and the upholsterer in conference on the top of an echoing staircase; 
and when I overheard Mr. Kindheart rendering English Undertak- 
ing phrases into very choice Italian, and the upholsterer replying in 
the unknown tongues; and when 1 furthermore remembered that 
the local funerals had no resemblance to English funerals; I becamo 
in my secret bosom apprehensive. But Mr. Kindheart informed me 
at breakfast that measures had been taken to insure a signal success. 

As the funeral was to take place at sunset, and as I knew to which 
of the city gates it must tend, 1 went out at that gate as the sun de- 
scended. and walked along the dusty, dusty road. 1 had not walked 
tar when I encountered this procession. 

1. Mr. Kindheart, much abashed, on an immense gray horse. 

2. A bright yellow coach-and-pair, driven by a coachman in bright 
red velvet knee-breeches and waistcoat. This was the established 
local idea of State. Both coach doors kept open by the coffin, which 
was (»n its side within, and sticking o\it at each. 

3. Behind the coach, the mourner, for whom the coach was in- 
tended. walking in the dust. 

4. Concealed behind a roadside well for the irrigation of a gar- 
den, the unintelligible Upholsterer, admiring. 

It matters little now. Coaches of all colors are alike to poor 
Kindheart, and he rests far North of the little cemetery with the cy- 
press-trees, by the city walls where the Mediterranean is so beautiful. 

My first funeral, a fair representative funeral after its kind, was 
that of the husband of a married servant, once my nurse. She 
married for money. Sally Flanders, after a year or two of matri- 
mony, became the relict of Flanders, a small master-builder; and 
either she or Flanders had done me the honor to express a desire 
that I should ” follow.” I may have been seven or eight years old 
— young enough, certainly, to feel rather alarmed bv the expression, 
as not knowing where the invitation was held to terminate, and how 
far 1 was expected to follow the deceased Flanders. Consent being 
given by the heads of houses, I was jobbed up into what was pro- 
nounced at home decent mourning (comprehending somebody else’s- 
shirt, unless my memory deceives me), and was admonished that if, 
when the funeral was in action, 1 put my hands in my pockets, or 
took my eyes out of my pocket-handkerchief. I was personally lost, 
and my family disgraced. On the eventful day, having tried to get 


THE UiS'CO.MMERCIAL TIIAVELER. 


183 


myself into a disastrous frame of mind, and hnvino: formed a very 
poor opinion of myself because 1 couldn’t cry, I repaired to Sally’s. 
Sally was an excellent creature, and Inid been a good wife lo old 
Flanders, but the moment I saw her I knew that she was nol in her 
own real imturaKstate. She formed a sort of Coat-ot-Arms, grouped 
with a smelling-bottle, a handkerchief, an orange, a bottle of vinegar. 
Flanders’s sister, her own sister, Flanders’s brother’s wife, and two 
neighboring gossips— all in mourning, and all ready to hold her 
whenever she fainted. At sight of poor little me she became much 
agitated (agitating me much more), and hairing exclaimed, “ Oh. 
here’s dear Master Uncommercial!” became hysterical, and swooned 
as if 1 had been the death of her. Anafl’ecting scene followed, dur- 
ing which I was handed about and poked at her by various people, 
as if I were the bottle of salts. Reviving a little, she embraced me, 
said, “You knew him well, dear Master Uncommercial, and he 
knew you!” and fainted again: which, as the rest of the Coat- of- 
Ar ms soothingly said, “ done her credit.” Now, I knew that she 
meedn’t have fainted unless she liked, and that she wouldn’t have 
fainted unless it had been expected of her, quite as well as I know 
it at this day. It made me feel uncomfortable and hypocritical be- 
sides. I was not sure but that it might be manners in me to faint 
next, and 1 resolved to keep my eye on Flanders’s uncle, and, if I 
saw any signs of his going in that direction, logo too, politely. But 
Flanders’s uncle (who was a weak little old retail grocer) had only 
one idea, which was that we all wanted tea; and he handed us cups 
of tea all round incessantly, whether we refused or not. There was 
a young nephew of Flanders’s present, to whom Flanders, it was 
rumored, had left nineteen guineas. He drank all the tea that was 
offered him, this nephew — amounting, I should say, to several 
quarts— and ate as much plum-cake as he could possibly come by; 
but he felt it to be decent mourning that he should now and then 
stop in the midst of a liimp of cake, and appear to forget that his 
mouth was full, in the contemplation of his uncle’s memory. 1 felt 
all this to be the fault of the undertaker, who was handing us gloves 
on a tea-tray as if they were muffins, and tying us into cloaks (mine 
had to be pinned up all round, it was so long tor me), because I 
knew that he was making game. So, when we got out into the 
.streets, and 1 constantly disarranged the procession by tumbling on 
the people before me because my handkerchief blinded my eyes, 
and tripping up the people behind me because my cloak was so 
long, 1 felt that we were all making game. 1 was truly sorry for 
Flanders, but I knew that it was no reason why we should be trying 
(the women with their heads in hoods like coal-scuttles with the 
black side outward) to keep step with a man in a scarf, carrying a 
thing like a mourning spy-glass, which he was going to open pres- 
ently, and sweep the horizon with. 1 knew that we should not all 
have been speaking in one particular key-note struck by the under- 
taker, if we had not been making game. Even in our faces we were 
every one of us as like the undertaker as if we had been his own 
family, and 1 perceived that this could not have happened unless 
we had been making game. .When we returned to Sally’s, it was all 
of a piece. The continued impossibility of getting on without plum- 
cake; the ceremonious apparition of a pair of decanters containing 


184 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

port and sherry and cork; Sally’s sister at the tea table, clinking the 
best crockery and shaking her head mournfully every time she 
looked down into the teapot, as if it were the tomb; the Coat-of- 
Arms again, and Sally as before; lastly, the words of consolation 
administered to Sally when it was considered right that she should 
“ come round nicely:” which were, that the deceased had had ” as 
com-for-ta-ble a fu-ne-ral as comfortable could be!” 

Other funerals have I seen with grown-up eyes, since that dajv of 
which the burden has been the same childish burden: Making 
game. Real affliction, real grief and solemnity, have been outraged, 
and the funeral has been ” performed.” The waste for which the 
funeral customs of many tribes of savages are conspicuous has at- 
tended these civilized obsequies; and once, and twice, have 1 wished 
in my soul that, if the waste must be, they would let the undertaker 
bury the money, and let me bury the friend. 

In France, upon the whole, these ceremonies are more sensibly 
regulated, because they are, upon the whole, less expensively regu- 
lated. I cannot say that I have ever been much edified by the cus- 
tom of tying a bib and apron on the front of the house of mourning, , 
or that 1 would myself particularly care to be driven to my grave 
in a nodding and bobbing car, like an infirm four-post bedstead, by 
an inky fellow-creature in a cocked-hat. But it may be that I am 
constitutionally insensible to the virtues of a cocked-hat. In pro- 
vincial France the solemnities are sufficiently hideous, but are few 
and cheap. The friends and townsmen of the departed, in their 
own dresses, and not masquerading under the auspices of the African 
Conjurer, surround the hand-bier, and often carry it. It is not 
considered indispensable to stifle the bearers, or even to elevate the 
burden on their shoulders; consequently, it is easily taken up, and 
easily set down, and is carried through tlie streets without the dis- 
tressing floundering and shuffling that we see at home. A dirty 
priest or two, and a dirtier acolyte or two, do not lend any especial 
grace to the proceedings; and 1 regard with personal animosity the 
bassoon, which is blown at intervals by the big-legged priest (it is 
always a big-legged priest who blows the bassoon), when his fellows 
combine in a lugubrious stalwart drawl. But there is far less of the 
Conjurer and the Medicine Man in the business than under like cir- 
cumstances here. The grim coaches that we reserve expressly for 
such shows are non-existent; if the cemetery be far out of the town, 
the coaches that are hired for other purposes of life are hired for 
this purpose; and, although the honest vehicles make no pretense of 
being overcome, I have never noticed that the people in them were 
the worse for it. In Italy, the hooded Members of Confraternities 
who attend on funerals are dismal and uely to look upon; but the 
services they render are at least voluntarily rendered, and impover- 
ish no one, and cost nothing. Why should high civilization and 
low savagery ever come together on the point of making them a 
wantonly wasteful and contemptible set of forms? 

Once I lost a friend by death, who had been troubled in his time 
by the Medicine Man and tlie Conjurer, and upon whose limited 
resources there were abundant claims. The Conjurer assured me 
that I must positively ” follow,” and both he and'the Medicine Man 
entertained no doubt that 1 must go in a black carriage, and must 


THE Uls’-COMMEKCIAL TKATELEU. 


185 


wear “fiUings.” I objected to fittings, as having nothing to do 
with niy friendship; and 1 objected to the black carriage, as being 
in more senses than one a job. So, it came into my mind to try 
what would happefa if I quietly walked, in my own way, from m'y 
own house to my friend's burial-place, and stood beside his open 
grave in my own dress and person, reverently listening to the best 
of Services. It satisfied my mind, 1 found, quite as well as if I had 
been disguised in a hired hat- band and scarf, both trailinsr to my 
very heels, and as if I had cost the orphan children, in their greatest 
need, ten guineas. 

Can any one who ever beheld the stupendous absurdities attendant 
on “A message from the Lords " in the House of Commons turn 
upon the Medicine Man of the poor Indians? Has he any “ Medi- 
oine,” in that dried skin pouch of his, so supremely ludicrous as the 
two Masters in Chancery holding up their black petticoats, and but- 
ting their ridiculous wigs at Mr. Speaker? Yet there are authorities 
innumerable to tell me — as there are authorties innumerable among 
the Indians to tell them— that the nonsense is indispensable, and 
that its abrogation-would involve most awful consequences. What 
would any rational creature who had never heard of judicial and 
forensic “ fittings,” think of the Court of Common Pleas on the first 
day of Term? Or with what an awakened sense of humor would 
Livingstone’s account of a similar scene be perused, if the fur and 
red cloth and goats’-hair and horse-hair and powdered chalk and 
black patches on the top of the head, were all at Tala Mungongo 
instead of Westminster? That model missionary and good brave 
man found at least one tribe of blacks with a very strong sense of the 
ridiculous, insomuch that, although an amiable and docile people, 
they never could see the missionaries dispose of their legs in the at- 
titude of kneeling, or hear them begin a hymn in chorus, without 
bursting into roars of irrepressible laughter. It is much to be hoped 
that no member of this facetious tribe may ever find his way to Eng- 
land, and get committed for contempt of Court 

In the Tonga Islands, already mentioned, there are a set of per- 
sonages called Mataboos— or some such name— who are the masters 
of all the public ceremonies, and who know the exact place in which 
every chief must sit down when a solemn public meeting takes 
place; a mee'ting which bears a family resemblance to our own 
Public Dinner, in respect of its being a main part of the proceedings 
that every gentleman present is required to drink something nasty. 
These Mataboos are a privileged order, so important is their avoca- 
tion, and they make the most of their high functions. A long way 
out of the Tonga Islands, indeed, rather near the British Islands, 
was there no calling in of the Mataboos the other day to settle an 
earth-convulsing question of precedence; and w^as there no weighty 
opinion delivered on the part of the Mataboos which, being inter- 
preted to that unlucky tribe of blacks with the sensd of the ridicu- 
lous, would infallibly set the whole population screaming with 
laughter? * 

My sense of justice demands the admission, however, that this is 
not quite a one-sided (question. If we submit ourselves meekly to 
•the Medicine Man and the Conjurer, and are not exalted by it, the 
ravages maj’’ retort upon us that we act more unwisely than they in 


186 


THE UHCOMMEHCIAL TRAVELER. 


other matters wherein we fail to imitate them. It is a widely- 
diffused custom among savage tribes, when they meet to discuss any 
affair of public importance, to sit up all night making a horrible 
noise, dancing, blowing shells, and (in cases where the}’’ are familiar 
with firearms) flying out into open places and letting off guns. It 
is questionable whether our legislative assemblies might not take a 
hint from this. A shell is not a melodious wind instrument, and it 
is monotonous; but it is as musical as, and not more monotonous 
than, my Honorable friend’s own trumpet, or the trumpet that he 
blows so hard for the Minister. The uselessness of arguing with 
any supporter of a Government or of an Opposition is well known. 
Try dancing. It is a better exercise, and has the unspeakable 
recommendation that it couldn’t be reported. I'he honorable and 
savage member who has a loaded gun, and has grown impatient of 
debate, plunges out of doors, fires in the air, and returns calm and 
silent to the Palaver. Let the honorable and civilized member, sim- 
ilarly charged with a speech, dart into the cloisters of Westminster 
Abbey in the silence of night, let his speech off, and come back harm- 
less. It is not, at first sight, a very rational custom to paint a broad 
blue stripe across one’s nose and both cheeks, and a broad, red 
stripe from the forehead to the chin, to attach a few pounds of wood 
to one’s under lip, to stick fish bones in one’s ears and a brass cur- 
tain ring in one’s nose, and to rub one’s body all over with rancid 
oil, as a preliminary to entering on business. But this is a question 
of taste and ceremony, and so is the Windsor Uniform. The man- 
ner of entering on the business itself is another question. A coun- 
cil of six hundred savage gentlemen entirely independent of tailors, 
sitting on their hams in a ring, smoking, and occasionally grunting, 
seem lo me, according to the experience I have gathered in my voy- 
ages and travels, somehow- to do what they come together for; 
whereas that is not at all the general experience of a council of six 
hundred civilized gentlemen very dependent on tailors, and sitting 
on mechanical contrivances. It is better that an assembly should 
do its utmost to envelop itself in smoke, than that it should direct 
its endeavors to enveloping the public in smoke: andl would rather 
it buried half a hundred hatchets than buried one subject demand- 
ing attention. 


XXVIl. 

titbull’s almshouses. 

By the side of most railways out of London one may see Alms- 
houses and Retreats (generally with a Wing or a Center wanting, 
and ambitious of being much bigger than they are), some of which 
are newly founded institutions, and some old establishments trans- 
})lanted. There is a tendency in these pieces of architecture to 
shoot upward unexpectedly, like Jack’s bean-stalk, and to be ornate 
in spires of Chapels ancf lanterns of Halls, which might lead to the 
embellishment of the air with many castles of questionable beauty 
but for the restraining consideration of expense. However, the 
managers, being always of a sanguine temperament, comfort them- 
selves with plans and elevations of Loomings in the future, and are 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


187 

influenced in tlie present ty philanthropy toward the railway paS' 
sengers. For, the question how prosperous and promising the build- 
ings can be made to look in their eyes, usually supersedes the lesser 
question how they can be turned to the best account for the inmates. 
Why none of the peopJe who reside in these places ever look out of 
window, or take an airing in the piece of ground which is going to 
be a garden by and by, is one of the wonders 1 have added to my 
always-lengthening list of the wonders of the world. 1 have got it 
into my mmd that they live in a state of chronic injury and resent- 
ment, and, on that account, refuse to decorate the biiilding with a 
human interest. As 1 have known legatees deeply injured by a be- 
qiiest of five hundred pounds because it was not five thousand, and 
as I was once acquainted with a pensioner on the Public, to the ex- 
tent of two hundred a year, who perpetually anathematized his 
Country because he was not in the receipt of four, having no claim 
whatever to sixpence; so perhaps it usually happens, within certain 
limits, that to get a little help is to get a notion of being defrauded 
of more. “ How do they pass their lives in this beautiful and 
peaceful place?” was the subject of my speculation with a visitor 
who once accompanied me to a charming rustic retreat for old men 
and women: a quaint ancient foundation in a pleasant English 
county, behind a picturesque church, and among rich old convent 
gardens. There were but some dozen or so of houses, and we 
agreed that we should talk with the inhabitants, as they sat in their 
groined rooms between the light of their fires and the light shining 
in at their latticed windows, and would find out. They passed their 
lives in considering themselves mulcted of certain ounces of tea by 
a deaf old steward who lived among them in the quadrangle. 
There was no reason to suppose that any such ounces of tea had 
ever been in existence, or that the old steward so much as knew 
what was the matter — he passed Jiis life in considering himself 
periodically defrauded of a birch-broom by the beadle. 

But it is neither to old Alnishouses in the country, nor to new 
Almshouses by the railroad, that these present uncommercial notes 
relate. They refer back to journeys made among those common- 
place smoky-fronted London Almshouses, with a little paved court- 
yard in front inclosed by iron railings, which have got snowed up, 
as it were, by bricks and mortar; which were once in a suburb, but 
are now in the densely-populated town; gaps in the busy life around 
them, parentheses in the close and blotted texts of the streets. 

Sometimes, these Almshouses belong to a Company or Society. 
Sometimes, they were established by indi^riduals, and are maintained 
out of private funds bequeathed in perpetuity long ago. My favor- 
ite among them is Titbull’s, which establishment is a picture of 
many. Of Titbull 1 know no more than that he deceased in 1723, 
that his Christian name was Sampson, and his social designation 
Esquire, and that he founded these Almshouses as Dwellings for 
Nine Poor Women and Six Poor Men by his Will and Testament. 
1 should not know even this much, but for its being inscribed on a 
grim stone very difiicult to read, let into the front of the center house 
of Titbuirs Almshouses, and which stone is ornamented atop with 
a piece of sculptured drapery resembling the effigy of TitbuH’s bath- 
towel. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


188 

Titbull’s Almshouses are in the east of London, in a i?reat high- 
way, in a poor, busy, and thronged neighborhood. Old iron and 
fried fish, cough-drops and artificial flowers, boiled pigs’ feet and 
household furniture that looks as if it were polished up with lip- 
salve, umbrellas full of vocal literature and saucers full of shell-fish 
in a green juice which 1 hope is natural to them when their health 
is good, garnish the paved sideways as you go to Titbull’s. I take 
the ground to have risen in those parts since Titbull’s time, and 
you drop into his domain by three stone steps. So did I first drop 
into it, very nearly striking my brows against Titbull’s pump, 
which stands with its back to the thoroughfare just inside the gate, 
and has a conceited air of reviewing Titbull’a pensioners. 

“And a worse one,’’ said a virulent old man with a pitcher, 
“ there isn’t nowhere. A harder one to work, norgrudginer one to 
yield, there isn’t nowhere!’’ This old man wore a long coat, such 
as we see Hogarth’s chairmen represented with, and it was of that 
peculiar green-pea hue without the green, which seems to come of 
poverty. It had also that peculiar smell of cupboard which seems 
to come of poverty. 

“ The pump is rusty, perhaps,” said 1. 

“ Hot it,'’ said the old man, regarding it with undiluted virulence 
in his watery eye. “ It never were fit to be termed a pump. That’s 
what’s the matter with it” 

“ Whose fault is that?” said 1. 

The old man, who had a working mouth which seemed to be try- 
ing to masticate his anger, and to find that it was too hard and there 
■w'as too much of it, replied, “ Them gentlemen.” 

‘ ‘ What gen tlemen ? ” 

“ Maybe you’re one of ’em?” said the old man, suspiciously. 

“ The trustees?” 

“ 1 wouldn’t trust ’em myself,” said the virulent old man. 

“ If you mean the gentlemen who administer this place, no, 1 am 
not one of them; nor have I ever so much as heard of them.” 

“ 1 wish / never heard of them,” gasped the old man; “ at my 
time of life — with the rheumatics— drawing water— from that thing!” 
Not to be deluded into calling it a Pump, the old man gave it an- 
other virulent look, took up his pitcher, and carried it into a corner 
dwelling-house, shutting the door after him. 

Looking around, and seeing that each little house was a house of 
two little rooms; and seeing that the little oblong court-yard in 
front was like a grave-yard for the inhabitants, saving that no word 
was engraven on its flat dry stones; and seeing that the currents of 
life and noise ran to and fro outside, having no more to do with the 
place than if it were a sort of low-water mark on a lively beach; 1 
say, seeing this and nothing else, 1 was going out at the gate when 
one of the doors opened. 

“ Was you looking for anything, sir?” asked a tiny, well-favored 
woman. 

Really, no; I couldn’t say 1 was. 

“ N ot wanting any one, sir ? ” 

“ NO'-at least, I — j)ray what is the name of the elderly gentleman 
who lives in the corner there?” 

The tidy woman stepped out to be sure' of the door 1 indicated^ 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 189 

and she and the pump and 1 stood all three in a row, with our backs 
to the thoroughfare. 

“ Oh! IIi8 name is Mr. Battens/’ said the tidy woman, dropping 
her voice. 

“ 1 have just been talking with him.” 

” Indeed?” said the tidy w'oman. “Ho! 1 wonder Mr. Battens 
talked!” 

” Is he usually so silent?” 

‘‘ Well, Mr. Battens is the oldest here— that is to say, the oldest 
of the old gentlemen— in point of residence.” 

She had a way of passing her hands over and under one another 
as she spoke, that was not only tidy, but propitiatory; so I asked 
her if I might look at her little sitting-room? She willingly re- 
plied Yes, and we went into it together; she leaving the door open, 
with an eye, as 1 understood, to the social proprieties. Tbe door at 
once opening into the room without any intervening entry, eveii 
scandal must have been silenced by this precaution. 

It was a gloomy little chamber, but clean, and with a mug of 
wallflower in the window. On the chimney-piece were two pea- 
cock’s feathers, a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile with 
one eyelash; whether this portrait purported to be male or female 
passed my comprehension, until my hostess informed me that it wa& 
her only son, and “ quite a speaking one.” 

“ He is alive, I hope?” 

‘‘ Ho, sir,” said the widow, ” he were cast away in China.” This* 
was said with a modest sense of its reflecting a certain geographical 
distinction on his mother. 

” If the old gentlemen here are not given to talking,” said 1, ” 1 
hope the old ladies are? — Not that you are one.” 

She shook her head. ” You see, they get so cross.” 

” How is that?” 

” Well, whether the gentlemen really do deprive us of any little- 
matters which ought to be ours by rights, 1 cannot say for certain;, 
but the opinion ‘Of the old ones is they do. And Mr. Battens he do 
even go so far as to doubt whether credit is due to the Founder. 
For Mr. Battens he do say, anyhovjK he got his name up by it, and 
he done it cheap. 

” I am afraid the pump has soured Mr. Battens.” 

” It may be so,” returned the tidy widow, ” but the handle does 
go very hard. Still, what 1 say to myself is, the gentlemen may 
not pocket the difference between a good pump and a bad one, and 
I would wish to think well of them. And the dwellings,” said my 
hostess, glancing round her room, ” parhaps they were convenient 
dwellings in the Founder’s time, considered as his time, and there- 
fore he should not be blamed. But Mrs. Saggers is very hard upon, 
them.” 

‘‘ Mrs. Saggers is the oldest here?” 

” The oldest but one. Mrs. Quinch being the oldest, and have 
Vitally lost her head.” 

” And you?’’ 

” 1 am the youngest in residence, and consequently am not looked 
up to. But, w’hen Mrs. Quinch makes a happy release, there will 


190 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

be one below me. Nor is it to be expected that Mrs. Saggers will 
prove herself immortal.’' 

“True. Nor Mr. Battens.” 

“Regarding the old gentleman,” said my widow slightingl}’^, 
“ they count among themselvef?. They do not count among us. 
Mr. Battens is that exceptional that he have written to the gentle- 
men many times, and have worked the case agaipst them. There- 
fore he have took a higher ground. But we do not, as a rule, 
greatly reckon the old gentlemen.” 

Pursuing the subject, 1 found it to be traditionally settled among 
the poor ladies that the poor gentlemen, whatever their ages, were 
all very old indeed, and in a state of dotage. I also discovered that 
the juniors and new-comers preserved, for a time, a waning disposi- 
tion to believe in Titbull and his trustees, but that, as they gained 
social standing, they lost this faith, and disparaged Titbull and 
all his works. 

Improving my acquaintance subsequently with this respected 
lady, whose name was Mrs. Mitts, and occasionally dropping in 
upon her with a little offering of sound Family Hyson in my pocket, 
I gradually became familiar with the inner politics and ways of 
TitbuU’s Almshouses. But 1 never could find out who the trustees 
were, or where they were: it being r>ne of the fixed ideas of the 
place that those authorities must be vaguely and mysteriously men- 
tioned as “ the gentlemen ” only. The secretary of “ the gentle- 
men ” was once pointed out to me, evidently engaged in champion- 
ing the obnoxious pump against the attacks of the discontented Mr. 
Battens; but 1 am not in a condition to report further of him than 
that he had the sprightly bearing of a lawyer’s clerk. 1 had it from 
Mrs. Mitts’s lips, in a very confidential moment, that Mr. Battens 
was once had up before “ the gentlemen ” to stand or fall by his 
accusations, and that an old shoe was thrown after him on his de- 
parture from the building on this dread errand; not ineffectually, 
for, the interview resulting in a plumber, was considered to have 
encircled the temples of Mr. Battens with the wreath of victory. 

In Titbull’s Almshouses the local society is not regarded as good 
society. A gentleman or lady receiving visitors from without, or 
going out to tea, counts, as it \^re, accordingly; but visitings, or 
tea-drinkings interchanged among Titbullians do not score. Such 
interchanges, how^ever, are rare, in consequence of internal dissen- 
sions occasioned by Mrs. Saggers’s pail: wdiich household article 
has split Titbull’s into almost as many parties as there are dwellings 
in that precinct. The extremely complicated nature of the conflict- 
ing articles of belief on the subject prevents my slating them here 
with my usual perspicuity, but 1 think they have all branched off 
from the root-and trunk question. Has Mrs. Saggers any right to 
stand her pail outside her dwelling? The question has been much 
refined upon, but, roughly stated, may be stated in those terms. 

There are two old men in Titbull’s Almshouses who, 1 have been 
given to understand, knew each other in the world beyond its pump 
and iron railings, when they were both “ in trade.” They make 
the best of their reverses, and are looked upon with great contempt. 
They are little, stooping, blear-eyed old men of cheerful counte- 
nance, and they hobble up and down the court-yard wagging their 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


191 


chins and talkin,^ together quite gayly. This has given offense,, and 
has, moreover, raised the question whether they are justified in pass- 
ing any other windows than their own. Mr, Battens, however, per- 
mitting them to pass his windows, on the disdainful ground that 
their imbecility almost amounts to irresponsibility, they are allowed 
to take their walk in peace. I’hey live next door to one another, 
and take it by turns to read the newspaper aloud (that is to say, the 
newest newspaper they can get), and they play cribbageat night. On 
warm and sunny days they have been known to go so far as to 
bring out two chairs, and sit by the iron railings, looking forth, 
but this low conduct being much remarked upon throughout Tit- 
bull’s, they w^ere deterred by an outraged public opinion from re- 
peating it. There is a rumor— but it may be malicious — that they 
hold the memory of Titbull in some weak sort of veneration, and 
that they once set off together on a pilgrimage to the parish church- 
yard to find his tomb. To this, perhaps, might be traced a general 
suspicion that they are spies of “ the gentlemen:” to which they 
were supposed to have given color, in my own presence, on the 
occasion of the weak attempt at justification of the pump by the 
gentlemen’s clerk; when they emerged bar^lieaded from the doors 
of their dwellings, as if their dwellings and themselves constituted 
an old-fashioned weather-glass of double action with two figures of 
old ladies inside, and deferentially bowed to him at intervals until 
he took his departure. They are understood to be perfectly friend- 
less and relationless. Unquestionably the two poor fellows make 
the very best of their lives in Titbull’s Almshouses, and unquestion- 
ably they are (as before mentioned) the subjects of unmitigated con- 
tempt there. 

On Saturday nights, when there is a greater stir than usual out- 
side, and when itinerant venders of miscellaneous wares even take 
their stations and light up their smoky lamps before the iron rail- 
ings, Titbull’s becomes flurried. Mrs. Saggers has her celebrated 
palpitations of the heart, for the most part, on Saturday nights. 
But Titbull’s is unfit to strive with the uproar of the streets in any 
of its phases. It is religiously believed at Titbull’s that people push 
more than they used, and likewise that the foremost object of the 
population of England and Wales is to get you down and trample 
on you. Even of railroads they know, at Titbull’s, little more than 
the shriek (which Mrs. Saggers says goes through her, and ought to 
be taken up by Government); and the penny postage may even yet 
be unknown there, for 1 have never seen a letter delivered to any 
inhabitant. But there is a tall, straight, sallow lady resident in 
Number Seven, Titbull’s, who never speaks to anybody, who is sur- 
rounded by a superstitious halo of lost wealth, who does her house- 
hold work in housemaid’s gloves, and who is secretly much deferred 
to, though openly caviled at; and it has obscurely leaked out that 
this old lady has a son, grandson, nephew, or other relative, who- 
is ‘‘a Contractor,” and who would think it nothing of a job ta 
knock down Titbull’s. pack it off into Cornwall, and knock it 
together again. An immense sensation was made by a gypsy party 
calling, in a spring van, to take this old lady up to go for a day’s 
pleasure into Epping Forest, and notes were compared as to which 
of the company was the son, grandson, nephew, or other relative. 


103 THE UN-COMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

tlie Contractor. A thick-set personage, witli a white bat and a 
<cigar in his mouth, was the favorite:^ though, as Titbull’s had no 
other reason to believe that the Contractor was there at all than 
that this man was supposed to eye the chimney-stacks as if ho 
would like to knock them down and cart them off, the general mind 
was much unsettled in arriving at a conclusion. As a way out of 
this difficulty, it concentrated itself on the acknowledged Beauty .of 
the party, every stitch in whose dress was verbally unripped by the 
old ladies then and there, and whose “ goings on ” with another and 
a thinner personage in a white hat miaht have suffused the pump 
{wiiere they were principally discussed) with blushes for months 
afterward. Herein Titbull’s was to TitbuU’s true, for it has a con- 
stitutional dislike of all strangers. As concerning innovations and 
improvements, it is always of opinion that what it doesn’t w'ant 
itself, nobody ought to want. But I think 1 have met with this 
opinion outside Tilbull’s. 

Of the humble treasures of furniture brought intoTitbull’s by the 
inmates when they establish themselves in that place of contempla- 
tion for the rest of their days, by far the greater and more valuable 
part belongs to the ladies. 1 may claim the honor of having either 
crossed the threshold, or looked in at the door, of every one of the 
nine ladies, and I have noticed that they are all particular in the 
article of bedsteads, and maintain favorite and long-established bed- 
steads and bedding as a regular part of their rest. Generally an 
antiquated chest of drawers is among their cherished possessions; 
a tea-tray always is. I know of at least two rooms in which a little 
tea-kettle of genuine burnished copper vies with the cat in winking 
at the fire; and one old lady has a tea-urn set forth in state on the 
top of her chest of drawers, which urn is used as her library, and 
contains four duodecimo volumes, and a black-bordered newspaper 
giving an account of the funeral of her Royal Highness the Prin- 
oess Charlotte. Among the poor old gentlemen there are no such 
niceties. Their furniture has the air of being contributed, like 
some obsolete Literary Miscellany, “by several hands;” their few 
chairs never match; old patchwork coverlets linger among them; 
and the}'’ have an untidy habit of keeping their wardrobes in hat- 
boxes. When I recall one old gentleman w’^ho is rather choice in his 
shoe-brushes and blacldng bottle, 1 have summed up the domestic 
elegancies of that side of the building. 

On the occurrence of a death in Titbull’s, it is invariably agreed 
among the survivors— and it is the only subject on which they do 
agree-- that the departed did something “ to bring it on.” Judging 
by Titbull’s, I should say the human race need never die, if they 
took care. But they don’t take care, and they do die, and when 
they die in Titbull’s they are buried at the cost of the Foundatmn. 
S«me provision has been made for the purpose, in virtue of which 
(I record this on the strength of having seen the funeral of Mrs. 
Quinch) a lively neighboring undertaker dresses up four of the old 
men, and four of the old w'omen, hustles them into a procession of 
four couples, and leads off with a large black bow at the back of 
hib hat, looking over his shoulder at thenr airily, from time to time, 
io see that no member of the party has got lost, or has tumbled 
down; as if they were a company of dim old dolls. 


THE rXOOMMERCTAL TRAYELEH. 193 

■Resignation of a dwelling is of very rare occurrence in Titbull’s. 
A story does obtain Uutg, how an old lady’s son once drew a prize 
of Thirty Thousand Pounds in the Lottery, and presently drove to 
the gate in his own carriage, with French horns playing up behind, 
and whisked his mother away.'and left ten guineas for a feast. But 
1 liave been unable to siibstantiale it by any evidence, and regard it 
as an Almshouse Fairy Tale. It is curious that the only proved 
case of resignation happened within my knowledge. 

It happened on this wise. Tliere is a sharp competition among 
the ladies respecting the gentility of their visitors, and I have so 
often observed visitors to be dressed as for a holiday occasion, that 
I suppose the ladies to have besought them to make all possible dis- 
play when they come. In these .circumstances much excitement 
was one day occasioned by Mrs. Mitts receiving a visit from a Green- 
wich Pensioner. He was a Pensioner of a bluff and warlike ap- 
pearance, with an empty coat-sleeve, and he was got up with un- 
usual care; his coat buttons were extremely bright, he wore his 
empty coat-sleeve in a graceful festoon, and he had a walking-stick 
in his hand that must have cost money. ^Yhen, with the head of 
Ids walRing-stick, he knocked at Mrs. JMitt’s door— there are no 
knockers in Titbull’s^ — Mrs. IMitts was overheard by a next door 
neighbor to utter a cry of surprise expressing much agitation; and 
the same neighbor did afterward solemnly affirm that, when he was 
admitted into Mrs. Mitts’s room, she heard a smack. Heard a 
smack which was not a blow. 

There was an air about this Greenwich Pensioner, when he took 
Ills departure, which imbued all Titbull’s with the conviction that 
he was coming again. He was eagerly looked for, and Mrs. Mitts was 
closely watched. In the meantime, if anything could have placed 
the unfortunate six old gentlemen at a greater disadvantage than 
that at which they chronically stood, it would have been the appa- 
rition of (his Greenwich Pensioner. They were well shrunken al- 
ready, but they shrunk to nothing in comparison w ith the Pensioner. 
Even the poor old gentlemen themselves seemed conscious of their 
inferiority, and to know submissively that they could never hope to 
hold their own against the Pensioner, with his war-like and mari- 
time experience in the past, and his tobacco money in the present: 
his checkered career of blue water, black gunpowder, and red 
bloodshed for England, home, and beauty. 

Before three weeks w^ere out, the Pensioner reappeared. Again 
he knocked at Mrs. Mitts’s door wdth the handle of his stick, and 
again was he admitted. But not again did he depart alone; for 
Mrs. Mitts, in a bonnet identified as having been re-embellished, 
w'ent out walking with him, and stayed out till the ten-o’clock beer, 
Greenwich time. 

There was now a truce even as to the troubled waters of Mrs. 
Sagger’s pail; nothing was spoken of among the ladies but the 
conduct of Mrs. Mitts, and its blighting influence on the reputation 
of Titbull’s. . It was agreed that Mr. Battens “ ou.ghtto lake it up,” 
and Mr. Battens was communicated with on the subject. That un- 
satisfactory individual replied “ that he didn’t see his way yet,” 
and it was iMiaiiimously voted by the ladies that aggravation wras in 
his nature. » 


194 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


How it came to pass, with some appearance of inconsisteDC 5 L that 
Mrs. Mitts was cut by all the ladies and Pensioner admired by all 
the ladies, matters not. Before another week was out Titbull’s was 
startled by another phenomenon. At ten o’clock in the forenoon 
appeared a cab, containing not only the Greenwich Pensioner with 
one arm, but, to boot, a Chelsea Pensioner with one leg. Both 
dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the Greenwich Pen- 
sioner bore her company inside, and the Chelsea Pensioner mounted 
the box by the driver; his wooden leg sticking out after the manner 
of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his friend’s sea-going 
career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs. Mitts returned 
that night. 

What Mr. Battens might have done in the matter of taking it up, 
goaded by the infuriated state of public feeling next morning, was 
anticipated by another phenomenon. A Truck propelled by the 
Greenwich Pensioner and the Chelsea Pensioner, each placidly 
smoking a pipe, and pushing his warrior breast against the handle. 

The display on the part of the Greenwich Pensioner of his “ mar- 
riaire lines,” and his announcement that himself and friend had 
looked in for the furniture of Mrs. G. Pensioner, late Mitts, by no 
means reconciled the ladies to the conduct of their sister; on the 
contrary, it is said that they appeared more than ever exasperated. 
Nevertheless, my stray visits to Titbiill’s, since the date of this occur- 
rence, have confirmed me in an impression that it was a wholesome 
fillip. The nine ladies are smarter, both in mind and dress, than 
they used to be, though it must be admitted that they despise the 
six gentlemen to the last extent. They have a much greater inter- 
est in the external thoroughfare, too, than they had when I first 
knew Tilbull’s. And whenever I chance to be leaning my back 
against the pump or the iron railings, and to be talking to one of 
the junior ladies, and to see that a flush has passed over her face, 1 
immediately know, without looking round, that a Greenwich Pen- 
sioner has gone past. 


XXVIII. 

THE ITALIAN PKISONKK. 

The rising of the Italian people from under their unutterable 
wrongs, and the tardy burst of day upon them after the long, long 
night of oppression that has darkened their beautiful country, have 
naturally caused my mind to dwell often, ot late, on my own small 
wanderings in Italy. Connected with them is a curious little drama 
in which the character I myself sustained was so very subordinate 
that I may relate its story without aii}’^ fear of being suspected of 
self- display. It is strictly a true story. 

I am newly arrived, one sumrtier evening, in a certain small town 
on the Mediterranean. 1 have had my dinner at the inn, and 1 and 
the mosquitoes are coming out into the streets together. It is far 
from Naples; but a bright brown plump little woman-servant at the 
inn is a Neapolitan, and is so vivaciously expert in pantomimic action, 
that, in the single moment of answering my request to have a pair 
of shoes cleaned which 1 have left up stairs, she plies imaginary 


THE UJsCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 


195 


brushes, and goes completely through the motions of polishing the 
shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little 
woman, in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; aud the brisk little 
woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased with her, 
claps her hands and lauehs delightfully. We are in the inn yard. 
As the little woman’s briffht eyes sparkle on the cigarette 1 am smok- 
ing, 1 make bold to offer her one; she accepts it none the less mer- 
rily, because I touch a most charming little dimple in her fat cheek 
with its light paper end. Glancing up at the many green lattices to 
assure herself that the mistress is not fooking on, the little woman 
then puts her two little dimpled arms a-kimbo,aud stands on tiptoe to 
light her cigarette at mine. “ And now, dear little sir,” says she, 
puffing out smoke in a most innocent and cherubic manner, ” keep 
quite straight on, take the first to the right, and probably you will 
see him standing at his door.” 

I have a commission to ” him,” and I have been inquiring about 
him. 1 have carried the commission about Italy several mouths. 
Before 1 left England, there came to me one night a certain gener- 
ous and gentle English nobleman (he is dead in these days when I re- 
late the story, and exiles have lost their best British friend), W'ith (his 
request: ” Whenever you come to such a town, will you secx out 
one Giovanni Carlavero, who keeps a little wine-shop there, men- 
tion my name to him suddenly, and observe how it affects him.” 
1 accepted the trust, and am on my way to discharge it. 

The sirocco has been blowing all day, and it is a hot unwhole- 
some evening, with no cool sea breeze. Mosquitoes and fire-flies are 
lively enough, but most other creatures are faint. The coquettish 
airs of pretty young women in the tiniest and wickedest of dolls’ 
straw hats, wlio lean out at opened lattice blinds, are almost the only 
airs stirring. Very ugly and haggard old women with distaffs, and 
with a gray tow upon them that looks as if they were spinning out 
their own hair (I suppose they were once pretty too, but it is very 
difiicult to believe so), sit on the footway leaning against house walls. 
Everybody who has come for water to the fountain stays there, and 
seems incapable of any such energetic idea as going home. Vespers 
are over, though not so long but that I can smell the heavy resinous 
incense as 1 pass the church. No man seems to be at wmrk save the 
coppersmith. In an Italian town he is always at work, and always 
thumping in the deadliest manner. 

1 keep .straight on, and come in due time to the first on the right; 
a narrow dull street, where I see a well-favored man of good stature 
and military bearing, in a great cloak, standing at a door. Draw- 
ing nearer lo this threshold, I see it is the threshold of a small wine- 
shop; and I can just inaKe out, in the dim light, the inscription that 
it is kept by Giovanni Carlavero. 

I touch my hat to the figure in the cloak, and pass in, and draw 
a stool to a little table. Tlie lamp (just such another as they dig up 
out of Pompeii) is lighted, but the’ place is empty. The figure in 
the. cloak has followed me in, and stands before me. 

” The master?” 

‘‘ At your service, sir.” 

” Please to give me a glass of the wine of the country.” 

He turns to a little counter to get it. As his striking face is pale, 


196 


THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TIIAVELER. 


and his action is evidently that of an enfeebled man, 1 remark that 
I fear he has been ill. It is not much, he courteously and gravely 
answers, though bad while it lasts; the fever. 

As he sets the wine on the little table, to his manifest surprise I 
lay my hand on the back of his, look him in the face, and say in a 
low voice: “ I am an Englishman, and you are acquainted with a 

friend of mine. Do you recollect ?” and 1 mentioned the name 

of my generous countryman. 

Instantly he utters a loud cry, bursts into tears, and falls on his 
knees at my feet, clasping my legs in both his arms, and bowing his 
head to the ground. 

Some years ago, this man at my feet, whose overfraught heart is 
heaving as it it would burst from his breast, and whose tears are wet 
upon the dress I wear, was a aalley-slave in the North of Italy. 
He was a political offender, having been concerned in the then last 
rising, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life. That^le would 
have died in his chains is certain, but for the circumstance that the 
Englishman happened to visit his prison. 

It was one of the vile old prisons of Italy, and a part of it was 
below the waters of the harbor. The place of his confinement was 
an arched underground and under-water gallery, with a grill-gate at 
the entrance, through which it received such light and air as it got. 
Its condition was insufferably foul, and a stranger could hardly 
breathe in it, or see in it with the aid of a torch. At the upper end 
of this dungeon, and consequently in the worst position, as being 
the furthest removed from light and air, the Englishman first be- 
held him, sitting on an iron bedstead, to wdiich he was chained by 
a heavy chain. His countenance impressed the Englishman as hav- 
ing nothing in common with the faces of the malefactors with whom 
he was associated, and he talked with him, and learnt how he came 
to be there. 

When the Englishman emerged from the dreadfu^l den into the 
light of day, he asked his conductor, the. governor of tlie jail; why 
Giovanni Carlavero was put into the worst place? 

“Because he is particularly recommended,” was the stringent 
answer. 

“ Recommended, that is to say, for death?” 

“ Excuse me; particularly recommended,” was again the answer. 

“ He has a bad tumor in his neck, no doubt occasioned by the 
hardship of his miserable life. If he continues to be neglected, and 
he remains where he is, it will kill him.” 

“ Excuse me, 1 can do nothing. He is particularly recommended.” 

The Englislnnan was staying in that town, and he went to his 
home there; but the figure of this man chained to the bedstead made 
it no home, and destroyed his rest and peace. He W’as an English- 
man of an extraordinarily tender heart, and he could not bear the 
picture. He went back to ibe prison gate; went back again and 
again, and talked to the man and cheered liim. He used his utmost 
infiuence to get the man unchained from the bedstead, were it only 
for ever so short a time in the day, and permitted to come to the 
grate. It took a long time, but the Englishman’s station, personal 
character, and steadiness of purpose wore out opposition so far, 
and that grace was at last accorded. Through the bars, when he 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


197 

could thus get light upon the tumor, the Englishman lanced it, and 
it did well, and healed. His strong interest in the prisoner had 
greatly increased by this time, and he formed the desperate resolu- 
tion that he would exert his utmost self devotion, and use his utmost 
edorts, to get Carlavero pardoned. 

If the prisoner had been a brigand and a murderer, if he had com- 
mitted every non-political crime in the Newgate Calendar and out 
of it, notbiue: w'ould have been easier than for a man of any court r 
or priestly influence to obtain his reiease. As it was, nothing could { 
have been more difficult. Italian authorities, and English authori- ! 
ties who had interest with them, alike assured the Englishman that 
his object w^as hopeless. He met with nothing but evasion, refusal, 
and ridicule. His political prisoner became a joke in the place. 

It was especially observable that English Circumlocution, and 
English Society on its travels, were as humorous on the subject as 
Circumlocution and Society may be on any sub ject without loss of 
caste. But the Englishman possessed (and proved it well in his 
life) a courage very uncommon among us: he had not the least fear 
of being considered a bore in a good humane cause. So he went on 
persistently trying, and trying, and trying to get Giovanni Carlavero 
out. That prisoner had been rigorously re-chained after the tumor 
operation, and it was not likely that his miserable life could last 
very long. 

One day, when all the town knew about the Englishman and his 
political prisoner, there carng to the Englishman a certain sprightly 
Italian Advocate of whom he hud some knowledge; and he made 
this strange propsal. “Give me a hundred pounds to obtain 
Carlavero’s release. I think I^can get him a pardon with that 
money. But I cannot tell you what I am going to do with the 
money, nor must you ever ask me the question if I succeed, nor 
must yoii ever ask me for an account of the money if 1 fail.” The 
Englishman decided to hazard the hundred pounds. He did so, 
and heard not another word of the matter. For half a year a*id 
more the Advocate made no sign, and never once “ took on” in 
any way to have the subject on his mind. The Englishman was 
then obliged to change iiis residence to another and more famous 
town in the North of Italy. He parted from the poor prisoner with 
a sorrowful heart, as from a doomed man for whom there was no 
release but Death. 

The Englishman lived in his new place of abode another half-year 
and more, and had no tidings of the wretched prisoner. At length, . 
one day, he received from the Advocate a cool, concise, mysterious j 
note to' this effect. “ If you still wish to bestow^ that benefit upon 
the man in whom you were 'once interested, send me fifty pounds ‘ 
more, and 1 think it can be insured.” Now, the Englishman had 
long settled in his mind that the Advocate was a heartless sharper, 
who had played upon his credulity and his interest in an unfortu- 
nate sufferer. So he sat down and wrote a dry answer, giving the 
Advocate to understand that he wma wiser now than he had been 
formerly, and that no more money was extractable from his 
pocket. 

He lived outside the city gates, some mile or two from the post- 
office, and was accustomed to walk into the city with his letters, and 


198 THE UlTOOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 

post them himself. On a lovely spring clay, when the sky was ex- 
quisitely bine, and the sea divinely beautiful, he took his usual 
walk, carrying this letter to tRe Advocate in his pocket. Ashe went 
along, his gentle heart was much moved by the loveliness of the 
prospect, and by the thought of the slowly-dying prisoner chained 
to the bedstead, for whom the universe had no delights. As he 
drew nearer and nearer to the city where he was to post the letter, 
he became very uneasy in his mind. He debated with himself, 
was it remotely possible, after all, that this sum of fifty pounds 
could restore the fellow-creature whom he pitied so much, and for 
whom he had striven so hard, to liberty? He was not a conven- 
tionally rich Englishman — very far from that — but he had a spare 
fifty pounds at the banker’s. He resolved to risk it. Without 
doubt, God has recompensed him for the resolution. 

He went to the banker’s, and got a bill for the amount, and in- 
closed it in a letter to the Advocate that 1 wish 1 could have seen. 
He simply told the Advocate that he was quite a poor man, and 
that he was sensible it might be a great weakness in him to part 
with so much money on the faith of so vague a communication; 
but that there it was, and that he prayed the Advocate to make good 
use of it. If he did otherwise, no good could ever come of it, and 
it would lie heavy on his soul one clay. 

Within a week the Englishman was sitting at his breakfast, when 
he heard some suppressed sounds of agitation on the staircase, and 
Giovanni Carlav(UO leaped into the room and fell upon his breast, 
a free man ! 

Conscious of liaving wronged the Advocate in his own thoughts, 
the Englishman wrote him an earnest and grateful letter, avowing 
the fact, and entreating him to confide by what means and through 
what agency he had succeeded so well. The Advocate returned for 
answer through the post, “ There are many things, as you know, 
in this Italy of ours, that are safest and best not even spoken of — far 
less written of. We may meet some day, and then I may tell you 
what you want to know; not here, and now.” But the two never 
did meet again. The Advocate was dead when the Englishman 
gave me my trust; and how the man had been set free remained as 
great a mystery to the Englishman, and to the man himself, as it 
was to me. 

But T knew this: Here was the man, this sultry night, on his 
knees at my feet, because I was the Englishman’s friend; here were 
his tears upon my dress; here were his sobs choking his utterance; 
here were his kisses on my hands, because they had touched the 
hands -that had worked out his release. He had no need to tell me 
it would be happiness to him to die for his benefactor; I doubt if 1 
ever saw real sterling, fervent gratitude of soul before or since. 

He was much watched and suspected, he said, and had had 
enough to do to keep himself out of trouble. This, and his not 
having prospered an his worldly affairs, had led to his having 
failed in his usual communications to the Englishman for — 
as I now remember the period— some two or three years, but his 
prospects were brighter, and his wife, who had been very ill, had 
recovered, and his fever had left him, and he had bought a little 
vineyard, and would I cany to his benefactor the first of its wine? 


THE UHCOMMEEOIAL TRAVELER. 199 

Ay, that 1 would, I told him with enthusiasm, and not a drop of it 
should be spilled or lost! 

He had cautiously closed the door before ST)ealdnfj:of himself, and 
had talked with such excess of emotion, and in a provincial Italian 
so difficult to understand, that 1 had more than once been obliged 
to’ stop him, and beg him to have compassion on me, and be slower 
and calmer. By degrees he became so, and tranquilly walked back 
with me to the hotel. There, I sat down, before I went to bed, and 
wrote a faithful account of him to the Englishman; which I con- 
cluded by saying that I would bring the wine home, against any 
difficulties, every drop. 

Early next morning, when I came out at the hotel door to pursue 
my journey, I found my friend waiting with one of those immense 
bottles in which the Italian peasants store their wine — a bottle hold- 
ing some half-dozen gallons — bound round with basket-work for 
greater safety on the journey. I see him now in the bright sun- 
light, tears of gratitude in his eyes, proudly inviting my attention 
to this corpulent bottle. (At the street corner hard by, two high- 
flavored, able-bodied monks — pretending to talk together, but keep- 
ing their four evil eyes upon us.) 

llow the bottle had been got there did not appear; but the diffi- 
culty of getting it into the ramshackle vetturino carriage in which 
I was departing was so great, and it took up so much room when 
it was got in, that 1 elected to sit outside. The last 1 saw of 
Giovanni Carlavero was his running through the town by the side 
of the jingling wheels, clasping my hand as 1 stretched it 
down from the box, charging me with a thousand last loving and 
dutiful messages to his dear patron, and finally looking in at the 
bottle, as it reposed inside, with an admiration of its honorable way 
of traveling that was beyond measure delightful. 

And now, what disquiet of mind this dearly-beloved and highl}^- 
trcasured Bottle began to cost me, no man knows. It wuis my 
precious charge through a long tour, and, for hundreds of miles, 1 
never had it off my mind .by day or by night. Over bad roads— 
and they were many— 1 clung to it with aflectionate desperation. 
Up mountains, 1 looked in at it, and saw it helplessly tilling over 
on its ba^'k, Avith terror. At innumerable inn doors, when the 
weatlier was bad, 1 wuis obliged to be put into my vehicle before the 
Bottle could be got in, and was obliged to have the Bottle lifted o\it 
before human aid could come near me. The Imp of the same 
name, except that his associations were all evil and these associations 
were all good, would have been a less tioublesome traveling com- 
panion. I might have served Mr. Cruikshankas a subject for a new 
illustration of the miseries of the Bottle. The National Temperance 
Society might have made a powerful Iract of me. 

The suspicions that attached to this innocent Bottle greatly ag- 
gravated my difficulties. It was like the apple-pie in the child’s 
book. Parma pouted at it, Modena mocked it, Tuscany tackled it, 
Naples nibbled it, Rome refused it, Austria accused it. Soldiers sus- 
pected it, Jesuits jobbed it. I composed a neat Oration, develo])ing 
my inoffensive iritentions in connection with this Bottle, and de- 
livered it in an infinity of guard-houses, at a multitude of town 


§00 


THE UNCOMMERCTAL TRAVELER. 


gates, and on every drawbridge, angle, and rampart of a complete 
system of fortifications. Fifty times a day I got down to harangue 
an infuriated soldiery about the Bottle. Through the filthy degrada- 
tion of the abject and vile Komau States, I had as much difficulty 
in working my way with the Bottle as if it had bottled up a com- 
plete system of heretical theology. In the Neapolitan country, 
where everybody was a spy, a soldier, a priest, or a lazzarone, the 
shameless beggars of all four denominations incessantly pounced 
on the Bottle, and made it a pretext for extorting money from me. 
Quires— quires do I say? Reams — of forms illegibly printed on 
whity-brown paper were filled up about the Bottle, and it was the 
subject of more stamping and sanding than I had ever seen before. 
In consequence of which haze of sand, perhaps, it was always ir- 
regular, and always latent with dismal penalties of going back or 
not going forward, which were only to be abated by the silver cross- 
ing of a base hand, poked shirtless out of a ragged uniform sleeve. 
Under all discouragements, however, I stuck to my Bottle, and held 
firm to my resolution that every drop of its contents should reach 
the Bottle’s destination. 

The latter refinement cost me a separate heap of troubles on its 
own separate account. What corkscrews did 1 see the military 
power bring out against that Bottle; what gimlets, spikes, divining 
rods, gauges, and unknown tests and instruments! At some places 
they persisted in declaring that the wine must not be passed without 
being opened and tasted; 1 pleading to the contrary, used then to 
argue the question seated on the Bottle, lest they should open it in 
§pite of me. In the southern parts of Italy more violent shrieking, 
face-making, and gesticulating, greater, vehemence of speech anO 
countenance and action, went on about that Bottle, than would 
attend fifty murders in a northern latitude. It raised important 
functionaries out of their beds in the dead of night. I have known 
half-a-dozen military lanterns to disperse themselves at all points of 
a great sleeping Piazza, each lantern summoning some official creat- 
ure to get up, put on his cocked hat instantly, and come and stop 
the Bottle. It was characteristic that while this innocent Bottle had 
such immense difficulty in getting from little towm to town. Signor 
Mazzinl and the fiery cross were traversing Italy from end to end! 

Still, I stuck to my Bottle, like any fine old English gentleman 
all of the olden time. The more the Bottle was interfered with, the 
stancher I become (if possible) in my first determination that my 
countryman should have it delivered to him intact, as the man whom 
he had so nobly restored to life and liberty had delivered it to me. 
If ever I had been obstinate in my days — and I may have been, say, 
once or twice — I was obstinate about the Bottle. But, I made it a 
rule always to keep a pocket-full of small coin at its service, and 
never to be out of temper in its cause. Thus I and the Bottle made 
our way. Once we had a break down; rather a bad break-down, 
on a steep high place with the sea below us, on a tempestuous even- 
ing when it blew great guns. We were driving four wild horses 
abreast. Southern fashion, and there was some little difficulty in 
stopping them. I was outside, and not thrown off; but no words 
can describe my feelings when I saw the Bottle— traveling inside, 
as usual — burst the door open, and roll obesely out into the road. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 20l 

A blessed Bottle with a charmed existence, he took no hurt and we 
repaired damage, and went on triumphant. 

A Ihousand representations were made to me that the Bottle 
must be left at this place, or that, and called for again. I never 
yielded to one of them, and never parted from the Bottle, on any 
pretense, consideration, threat, or entreaty. I had no faith in any 
official receipt for tlie Bottle, end nothing would induce me to ac- 
cept one. These unmanageable politics at last brought me and the 
Bottle, still triumphant, to Genoa. There I took a tender and re- 
luctant leave of him for a few weeks, and consigned him to a trusty 
English captain, to be conveyed to the Port of London by sea. 

While the Bottle was on his voyage to England, I read the Ship- 
ping Intelligence as anxiously as if I had been an underwriter. 
There was some stormy weather after 1 myself had got to England, 
by way of Switzerland and France, and my mind greatly misgave 
me that the Bottle might be wrecked. At last, to my great joy, 1 
received notice of his safe arrival, and immediately went down to 
St. Katherine’s Docks, and found him in a state of honorable cap- 
tivity in the Custom House. 

The wine was mere vinegar when 1 set it down before the gener- 
ous Englishman — probably it had been something like vinegar when 
I took it up from Giovanni Carlavero — but not a drop of it was 
spilled or gone. And the Englishman told me, with much emotion 
in his face and voice, that he had never tasted wine that seemed to 
him so sweet and sound. And long afterward the Bottle graced his 
table. And the last time I saw him in this world that misses him, 
he took me aside in the crowd to say, with his amiable smile, “ We 
w'ere talking of you only to-day at dinner, and 1 wished you had been 
there, for 1 had some Claret up in Carlavero ’s Bottle.” 


XXIX. 

THE SHORT-TIMERS. 

” Within so many yards of this Covent Garden lodging of mine, 
as within so many yards of Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathe- 
dral, the Houses of Parliament, the Prisons, the Courts of Justice, 
all the Institutions that govern the land, I can find— must find, 
whether I will or no— in the open streets, shameful instances of 
neglect of children, intolerable toleration of the engenderment of 
paupers, idlers, thieves, races of wretched and destructive cripples 
both in body and mind, a misery to themselves, a misery to the. 
community, a disgrace to civilization, and an outrage on Christian- 
ity. I know it to be a fact as easy of demonstration as any sum in 
any of the elementary rules of arithmetic, that if the State would 
begin its work and duty at the beginning, and would with the 
strong hand take those children out of the streets while they are yet 
children, and wisely train them, it would make them a part of 
England’s glory, not its shame — of England’s strength, not its 
w'eakness — would raise good soldiers and sailors, and good citizens, 
and many great men out of the seeds of its criminal population. 
Yet 1 go on bearing with the enormity as if it were nothing, and I 
go on reading the Parliamentary Debater as if they were something, 


THE UJS:COMMEliCIiLL TKAVELER. 


m 

aud I concern myself far more about one railway bridge across a 
public thoroughfare than about a dozen generations of scrofula, ig- 
norance. wickedness, prostitution, poverty, and felony. I can slip 
out at my door in the small hours after any midnight, and in one 
circuit of the purlieus of Covent Garden Market, can behold a state 
of infancy and youth as vile as if a Bourbon sat upon the English 
throne; a great police force looking on with authority to do no more 
than worry and hunt tlie tlreadfui vermin into corners, and there 
leave them. \V ithin the length of a few streets I can find a work- 
house, mismanaged with that dull, short sighted obstinacy that its 
greatest opportunities as to the children it receives are lost, and yet 
not a farthing saved to any one. But the wheel goes round, and 
round, and round; and because it goes round— so 1 am told by the 
politest authorities — it goes well.” 

Thus I reflected, one day in the Whitsun week last p^ast, as I 
floated down the Thames among the bridges, lookjng— not inappro- 
priately— at the drags that were hanging up at certain dirty stairs 
to hook the drowned out, and at the numerous conveniences pro- 
vided to facilitate their tumbling in. My object in that uncommer- 
cial journey called up another train of thought, and it ran as fol- 
lows; 

” When I was at school, one of seventy boys, I wonder by what 
secret understanding our attention began to wander when we had 
Xjored over our books for some hours. I wonder by what inge- 
nuity we brought on that confused state of mind when sense became 
nonsense, when figures wouldn’t work, when dead languages 
wouldn’t construe, when live languages wouldn't be spoken, when 
memory wouldn’t come, when dullness aud vacancy wouldn’t go. 
I cannot remember that we ever conspired to be sleepy after dinner, 
or that we ever particularly wanted to be stupid, aud to have flushed 
laces and hot, beating heads, or to find blank hopelessness and ob- 
scurity this afternoon in what would become perfectly clear and 
bright in the freshness of to-morrow mornin^^ We suffered for 
these things, and they made us miserable enough. Neither do 1 
remember that we ever bound ourselves, by any secret oath or other 
solemn obligation, to find the seats getting too hard to be sat upon 
after a certain time; or to have intolerable twitches in our legs, ren- 
dering us aggressive and malicious with those members; or to be 
troubled with a similar uneasiness in our elbows, attended with 
fistic consequences to our neighbors; or to carry two pounds of 
lead in the chest, four pounds in the head, and several active blue- 
bottles in each ear. Yet, for certain, we suffered under those dis- 
tresses, and were always charged at for laboring under them, as if 
we had brought them on of our own deliberate act and deed. As 
to the mental portion of them being my own fault in my own case 
— 1 should like to ask any well-trained and experienced teacher, 
not to say psychologist. And as to the physical portion — I should 
like to ask PiipFEssoii Owen.” 

It happened that J had a small bundle of papers with me, on what 
is called ” The Half-Time System,” in schools. Referring to one 
of those papers, 1 found that the indefatigable Mr. Chadwick had 
been beforehand with me, and had already asked Professor Owen: 
who had handsomely replied that 1 was not to blame, but that, being 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER, 


203 


troubled with a skeleton, and having been constituted according to 
certain natural laws, I and my skeleton were unfortunately bound 
by those laws — even in school — and had comported ourselves ac- 
cordingly. Much comforted by the good Professor’s being on my 
side, I read on to discover whether the indefatigable Mr. Chadwick 
had taken up the mental partt of my afflictions. I found that he 
had, and that he had gained on my behalf Sir Benjamin Brodie, 
Sir David Wilkie, Sir Walter Scott, and the common sense of 
mankind. For which 1 beg Mr. Chadv/ick, if this should meet his 
eye, to accept my warm acknowledgments. 

Up to that time 1 had retained a misgiving, that the .seventy un- 
fortunates, of whom 1 was one, must liave been, without knowing 
it, leagued together by the spirit of evil in a sort of perpetual Guy 
Fawkes Plot, to grope about in vaults with dark lanterns after a 
certain period of continuous study. But now the misgiving van- 
ished, and 1 floated on with a quieted mind to see the Balt-Time 
System in action. For that was the purpose of my .iourney, both 
by steamboat on the Thames, and by very dirty railway on the 
shore. To which last institution I beg to recommend the legal use 
of coke as engine fuel, rather than the illegal use of coal; the rec- 
ommendation is quite disinterested, for I was most liberally sup- 
plied with small coal on the journey, for which no charge was made. 
1 had not only my eyes, nose, and ears tilled, but my hat, and all 
my pockets, and my pocket-book, and my watch. 

Tlie V.D.IS.O.U.C. (or Very Dirty and Small Coal Railway Com- 
pany) delivered me close to my destination, and 1 soon found the 
Jlalf-Time System established in spacious premises, and freely 
placed at my convenience and disposal. 

What would 1 see first of the Half-Time System? I chose Military 
Drill. Atten — tion!” Instantly a hundred boys stood forth in the 
paml yard as one boy; bright, quick, eager, steady, w'atchful for 
the look of command, instant and ready for the word. Not only 
was there complete precision — complete accord to tlie eye and to the 
ear— but an alertness in the doing of the thing which deprived it, 
curiously, of its monotonous or mechanical character. There was 
perfect uniformity, and yet an individual spirit and emulation. No 
spectator could doubt that the boys liked it. With non-commis- 
sioned officers varying from a yard to a yard and a half high, the 
result could not possibly have been attained otherwise. They 
marched, and countermarched, and formed in line and square, and 
company, and single file and double file; and performed a variety 
of evolutions; all most admirably. In respect of an air of enjoyable 
understanding of what they w^ere about, which seems to be forbid- 
den to English soldiers, the boys might have been small French 
troops. When they were dismissed and the broadsw’ord exercise, 
limited to a much smaller number, succeeded, the boys who had no 
part in that new drill either looked on attentively, or disported 
themselves in a gymnasium hard by. The steadiness of the broad- 
sw’ord boys on their short legs and the firmness with wdiich they 
su.‘-tained'’the different positions, was truly remarkable. 

Tlie broadsword exercies over, suddenly there was great excite- 
jnent and a rush. Naval Drill! 

In a corner of the ground stood a decked mimic ship, with rea] 


204 


THE UKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


masts, yards, and sails — mainmast seventy feet high. At the word 
of command from the Skipper of this ship — a mahogany faced Old 
Salt with the indispensable quid in his cheek, the true nautical roll, 
and all wonderfully complete— the rigging was covered with a 
swarm of boys: one, the first to spring into the shrouds outstrip- 
ping all the others, and resting on the truck of the maintopmast in 
no time. 

And now we stood out to sea in a most amazing manner; the 
Skipper himself, the whole crew, the Uncommercial, and all hands 
present, implicitly believing that there was not a moment to lose, 
that the wind had that instant chopped round and sprung up fair, 
and that we were away on a voyage round the world. Get all sail 
upon her! With a will, my lads! Lay out upon the main-yard 
there! Look alive at the weather ear-ring! Cheery my bo 3 's! Let 
go the sheet now! Stand by at the braces, you! With a will, aloft 
there! Belay, starboard watch! Fifer! Come aft, fifer, and give 
’em a tune! Forthwith springs up fifer, fife in hand— smallest boy 
ever seen — big lump on temple, having lately fallen down on a 
paving stone— gives ’em a tune with all his might and main. 
Hooroar, fifer! With a will, my lads! Tip ’em a livelier one, fifer! 
Fifer tips ’em a livelier one, and excitement increases. Shake ’em 
out, my lads! Well done! There you have her! Tretly, pretty! 
Every rag upon her she can carry, wind right astarn, and ship cut- 
ting through the water fifteen knots an hour! 

At this favorable moment of her voyage I gave the alarm, “ A 
man overboard!” (on the gravel), but he was immediately recovered, 
none the worse. Presently, 1 observed the Skipper overboard, but 
forebore to mention it, as he seemed in nowise disconcerted by the 
accident. Indeed, I soon came to r.egard the Skipper as an amphibi- 
ous creature, for he was so perpetually plunging overboard to look 
up at the hands aloft, that he was oftener in the bosom of the ocean 
than on deck. His pride in his crew on those occasions was de- 
lightful, and the conventional imintelligibility of Ids orders in the 
ears of uncommercial landlubbers and loblolly boys, though they 
were always intelligible to the crew, was hardly less pleasant. But 
w^e couldn’t expect to go on in this way forever; dirty w’cather came 
on, and then worse weather, and when we least expected it we got 
into tremendous difficulties. Screw loose in the chart, perhaps — 
something certainly wrong somewhere — but here we were with 
breakers ahead, my lads, driving head on, slap on a lee shore! The 
Skipper broached this terrific announcement in such great agitation, 
that the small fifer, not fifing now, but standing looking on near the 
wheel with his fife under his arm, seemed for the moment quite nn- 
boyed, though he speedily recovered his presence of mind. In the 
trying circumstances that ensued, the Skipper and the crew proved 
worthy of one another. The Skipper got dreadfully hoarse, but 
otherwise was master of the situation. The man at the wheel did 
wonders; all hands (except the fifer) were turned up to wear ship; 
and 1 observed the fifer, wdien we were at our greatest extremity, to 
refer to some document in his waistcoat pocket, which I conceived 
to be his will. 1 think she struck. 1 was not myself conscious of 
any collision, but 1 saw the Skipper so very often washed overboard 
and back again, that 1 could only impute it to the beating of the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 205 

Ship. 1 am not enough of a seaman to describe the maneuvers by 
which we were saved, but they made the Skipper very hot (French 
polishing his mahogany face) and the crew very nimble, and suc- 
ceeded to a marvel; for, within a few minutes of the first alarm, we 
had wore ship and got her olf, and were all a-tauto— which 1 telt 
very grateful for: not that I knew what it was,, but that 1 perceived 
that we had not been all a-tauto lately. Laud now appeared on our 
weather-bow, and we shaped our course for it, having the wind 
abeam, and frequently changing the man at the helm, in order that 
every man might have his spell. VVe worked into harbor under 
prosperous circumstances, and furled our sails, and squared our 
yards, and made all ship-shape and handsome, and so our voyage 
ended. When 1 complimented the Skipper, at parting, on his ex- 
ertions and those of his gallant crew, he informed me that the latter 
were provided for the worst, all hands being taught to swim and 
dive; and he added that the able seaman at the main-topmast truck, 
especially, could dive as deep as he could go high. 

The next adventure that befell me, in my visit to the Short- 
Timers, was the sudden apparition of a military band. 1 liad been 
inspecting the hammocks of the crew of the goftd ship, when 1 saw 
with astonishm.ent that several musical instruments, brazen and of 
great size, appeared to have suddenly developed two legs each, and 
to be trotting about a yard. And my astonishment was heightened 
when I observed a large drum, that had previously been leaning 
helpless against'a wall, taking up a stout position on four legs. Ap- 
proa'chijig this drum and looking over it, 1 found two boys behind 
it (it was too much for one), and then I found that each of the braz- 
en instruments had brought out a boy, and was going to discourse 
sweet sounds. The bo 3 's — not omitting thefifer, now playing a new 
instrument— were dressed in neat uniform, and stood up in a circle 
at their music stands, like any .other Alilitai'}’- Band. They played a 
march or two, and then we had Cheer, Boys, Cheer, and then we 
had Yankee Doodle, and we finished, as in loyal duty bound, with 
God Save the Queen. The band’s proficiency was perfectly won- 
derful, and it was not at all wonderful that the whole body corpo- 
rate of'Short-Timers listened with faces of the liveliest interest and 
pleasure. 

What happened next among the Short-Timers? As if the band 
had blown me into a great class-room out of their brazen tubes, in 
a great class-room I found myself now, with the whole choral force 
of Short-Timers singing the praises of a summer’s day to the har- 
monium, and m 3 ’- small but highly-respected friend the lifer blazing 
away vocally, as if he had been saving up his wind for the last 
twelvemonth; also the whole crew of the good ship “Nameless” 
swarming up and down the scale as it they had never swarmed up 
and down the rigging. This done, we threw’ our whole power into 
God bless the Prince of Wales, and blessed his Royal Highness to 
such an extent that, for my own uncommercial part, I gasped again 
when it was over. The moment this was done, we formed, with 
surpassing freshness, into hollow squares, and fell to work at oral 
lessons, as if we never did, and had never thought of doing, any- 
thing else. 

Let a veil be drawn over the self-committals into which the Un- 


206 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


commercial Tniveler would have been bel rayed but for a discreet 
reticence, coupled with an air of absolute wisdom on Hie part of 
that artful personage. Take the square of five, multiply it by fif- 
teen, divide it by three, deduct eight from it, add four dozen to it, 
give me the result in pence, and tell me how many eggs I could get 
for it at three farthings apiece. The problem is hardly stated, when 
a dozen small boys pour out answers. Some wide, some very nearly 
right, some worked as far as tliey go with such accuracy as at once 
to show what link of the chain has been dropped in the hurry. For 
the moment, none are quite right; but behold a laboring si)ii it beat- 
ing the buttons on its corporeal w'aistcoat in a process of iulernal 
calculation, and knitting an accidental bump on its corporeal fore- 
head in a concentration of mental arithmetic! It is my honorable 
friend (if he will allow me to call him so) the lifer. \\ ith right arm 
eagerly extended in token of being inspired with an answer, and 
with right leg foremost, the filer solves the mystery: then recalls 
both arm and leg, and with bump in ambush awaits the next poser. 
Take the square of three, multiply it by seven, divide it by four, 
add fifty to it, take thirteen from it, multipl}’- it by two, double it. 
give me the result fu pence, and say how many halfpence. Wise as 
the serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to 
that instrument, wdiose right arm instantly appears, and quenches 
this arithmetical fire. Tell me something about Great Britain, tell 
me something about its principal productions, tell me something 
about its ports, tell me something about its seas and rivers, tell me 
something about coal, iron, cotton, timber, tin, and turpentine. 
The hollow square bristles with extended rightarms; butever faith- 
ful to fact is the filer, ever wise as the serpent is the performer on 
that instrument, ever prominently buo^uint and brilliant are all 
members of the band, 1 observe tlie player of the cymbals to dash 
at a sounding answer nowand then rather than not cut in at all; 
but I take that to be in the way of his instrument. All these ques- 
tions, and man}’’ such, are put on the spur of the moment, and by 
one who has never examined these boys. The Uncommercial, in- 
vited to add another, falteringly demands how many birthdays a 
man born on the tw’enty-ninth of February will have had on com- 
pleting his fiftieth year? A general perception of trap and pitfall 
instantly arises, and the filer is seen to retire behind the corduroys 
of his next neighbors, as perceiving special necessity for collecting 
himself and communing with his mind.' Meanwhile, the wisdom 
of the serpent suggests that the man vvill have had only one birth- 
day in all that time, for how can any man have more than one, see- 
ing that he is born once and dies once? The blushing Uncommer- 
cial stands corrected, and amends the formula. Pondering ensues, 
two or three wrong answers are offered, and Cymbals strikes up 
“ six!” but doesn’t know why. Then, modestly emerging from his 
Academic Grove of corduroys, appears the filer, right arm extended, 
right leg loremost, bump irradiated. ” Twelve, and two over!” 

The feminine Short-Timers passed a similar examination, and very 
creditabl}" too. Would have done belter, perhaps, with a little more 
geniality on the part of their pupil teacher; for a cold e 3 'e, my 
young friend, and a hard abrupt manner, are not by any means the 
powerful engines that yoviv innocence supposes them to be. Both 


xlIE UNCOMMERCIAL TJIAVELER. 


m 

girltj aud boys wrote excellently, from copy and dictation; both 
could cook; both could mend their own clothes; both could clean 
up everything about them in an oiderly aud skillful way, the girls 
havino; womanly household knowledge supeiadded. Order and 
inethod began in the SDiigs of the Infant ydiool, which 1 visited 
likewise, and they were even in their dwarf degree to be found in 
the Nursery, where the uncommercial walking-stick was carried off 
with acchimtitions, and where “ the Doctor ” — a medical •jrentleman 
ot two, who took ids degree on the night when he was found at an 
apothecary’s door--d id the honors of the establishment with great 
urbanity and gayely. 

Tliese have long been excellent schools; long before the da.ys of 
the 8hort-Time. I lirst saw them twelve or fifteen years ago. But. 
since the introduction of the iShort-Time system, it has been proved 
here that eighteen hours a week of book-learning are more profitable 
than thirty six, and that the pupils are far quicker and brighter than 
of yore. The good influences of music on the whole body of chil- 
dren have likewise been surprisingly proved. Obviously another of 
the Immense advantages of the Short-Time system to the cauKC of 
good education is the great diminution of its cost, and of the period 
of time over which it extends. The last is a most important consid- 
eration, as poor parents are always impatient to profit by their chil- 
dren’s labor. 

It will be objected: Firstly, that this is all very well, but special 
local advantages and special selection ot children must be necessary 
to such success. Secondly, that this is all very well, but must be 
very expensive. Thirdly, that this is all very well, but we have no 
proof ot the residts, sir, no proof. 

On the first head of local advantages and special selection. Would 
Limehofise Hole be picked out tor tlie site of a Children’s Paradise? 
Or would the legitimate and illegitimate pauper children of the 
’long-shore population of such a river-side district be regarded as 
unusually favorable specimens to work with? Yet these schools are 
at Limehouse and are the Pauper Schools of the Stepney Pauper 
Union. 

On the second head of expense. Would sixpence a week be con- 
sidered a very large cost for the education of each pupil, including 
all salaries of teachers and rations of teachers? But supposing the 
cost were not sixpence a week, not fivepence? It is fourpence- 

HALFPENNY. 

On the third head of no proof, sir, no proof. Is there any proof 
in the facts that Pupil Teachers more in number, and more highly 
qualified, have been produced here under the Short-Time system 
than under the Long-Time system? That the Short-Timers, in a 
writing competition, beat the Long-Timers of a first-class National 
School ? That the sailor boys are in such demand for merchant 
ships, that whereas, before they were trained, £10 premium used to 
be given with each boy — too often to some greedy brute of a drunken 
skipper, who disappeared before the term of apprenticeship was 
out, if the ill used boy didn’t— captains of the best character now 
lake these bo 3 'S more than willingly, with no premium at all? That 
they are also much esteemed in the Royal Navy, which they prefer, 
“ because cveiy thing is so neat aud cleau aud orderly ”? Or, is there 


208 ’ THE UlTCOMilERCIAL TRAVELER. 

any proof in Naval captains writing, “ Your little fellows are all 
that 1 can desire?” Or, isthere any proof in such testimony as this? 
” The owner of a vessel called at the school, and said that as his 
ship was going down Channel on her last voyage, with one of the 
boys from the school on board, the pilot said, ‘ It would be as well 
if the royal were lowered; I wish it were down.’ Without waiting 
for any orders, and unobserved by the- pilot, the lad, whom they had 
taken on board from the school, instantly mounted the mast and 
lowered the royal, and at the next glance of the pilot to the mast- 
head, he perceived that the sail liad been let down. He exclaimed, 

‘ Who’s done that job?’ The owner, who was on board, said, 
‘That was the little fellow whom 1 put on board two days ago.’ 
The pilot immediately said, ‘ Why, where could he have been 
brought up?’ That boy had never seen the sea or been on a real 
ship before!” Or, is there any proof in these boys being in greater 
demand for Regimental Bands than the Union can meet? Or, in 
ninety-eight of them having gone into Regimental Bands in three 
years? Or, in twelve of them being in the band of one regiment? 
Or, in the colonel of that regiment writing, “ We want six more 
bo 3 ’^s; they are excellent lads ”? Or, in one of the boys having risen 
to be band corporal in the same regiment? Or, in employers of all 
kinds chorusing, ” Give us drilled boys, for they are prompt, obe- 
dient, and punctual ”? Other proofs 1 have myself beheld with 
these uncommercial eyes, though I do not regard m 3 ’'self as having a 
right to relate in what social positions they have seen respected men 
and women who were once pauper children of the Stepney Union. 

Into what admirable soldiers others of these boys have the capa- 
bilities for being turned, I need not point out. Many of them are 
always ambitious of military service; and once upon a time, when 
an old boy came back to see the old place, a cavalry soldier, all 
complete, loitli his spurs on, such a yearning broke out to get into 
cavalry regiments and wear those sublime appendages, that it was 
one of the greatest excitements ever known in the school. The girls 
make excellent domestic servants, and at certain periods come back, 
a score or two at a time, to see the old building, and to take tea 
with the old teachers, and to hear the old band, and see the old ship 
with her masts towering up above the neighboring roofs and chim- 
neys, As to the physical health of these schools, it is so exception- 
ally remarkable (simply because thojeaniiary regulations me as good 
as the other educational arrangements), that when Mr. Tufnell, 
the Inspector, first stated it in a report, he was supposed, in spite of 
his high character, to have been betrayed into some extraordinary 
mistake or exaggeration. In the moral health of these schools— 
where corporal puniahment is unknown— Truthfulness stands high. 
When the ship was first erected, the boys were forbidden to go aloft 
until the nets, which are now always there, were stretched as a 
precaution against accidents. Certain boys , in their eagerness, dis- 
obeyed the injunction, got out of window in the early daylight, and 
climbed to the masthead. One boy unfortunately fell, and was 
killed. There was no clew to the others; but all the bo.ys were as- 
sembled, and the Chairman of the Board addressed them. ” I 
promise nothing; jmu see what a dreadful thing has happened; you 
know what a grave offense it is that has led to such a consequence; 


THE Ui^COMMEllClAL TRAVELED. 209 

1 cannot say what will be done with the offenders; but, boys, you 
have been trained here, above all things, to respect the truth. I 
want the truth. Who are the delinquents?” Insiantly, the whole 
number of boys concerned separated from the rest, and stood out. 

Now, the head and heart of that gentleman (it is needless to say, 
a good head and a good heart) have been deeply interested in these 
schools for many years, and are so still; and the establishment is 
very fortunate in a most admirable master, and, moreover, the 
schools of the Stepney Union cannot have got to be what they are 
without the Stepney Board of Guardians having been earnest and 
humane men, strongly imbued with a sense of their responsibility. 
But what one set of men can do in thiswise, another set of men can 
do, and this is a noble example to all other Bodies and Unions, and 
a nobie example to the State. Followed, and enlarged upon by its 
enforcement on bad parents, it would clear London streets of the 
most terrible objects they smite the sight with— myriads of little 
children who awfully reverse Our Saviour’s words, and are not of 
the Kingdom of Heaven, but of the Kingdom of Hell. 

Clear the public streets of such shame, and the public conscience 
of such reproach? Ah! Almost prophetic, surely, the child’s 
jingle: 

“ ‘When will that be?’ 

Say the bells of Step-ney.” 


XXX. 

A SMALL STAR IN THE EAST. 

I HAD been looking, yesternight, through the famous “ Dance of 
Death,”’ and to-day the grim old woodcuts arose in my mind with 
the new significance of a ghastly monotony not to be found in the 
original. The weird skeleton rattled along the streets before me, and 
struck fiercely; but it was never at the pains of assuming a disguise. 
It played on no dulcimer here, was crowned with no flowers, 
waved no plume, minced in no flowing robe or train, lifted no 
wine-cup, sat at no feast, cast no dice, counted no gold. It was 
simply a bare, gaunt, famished skeleton, slaying his way along. 

The borders of Ratcliff and Stepney, eastward of London, and 
giving bn the impure river, were the scene of this uncompromising 
dance of death, upon a drizzling November day. A squalid maze 
of streets, courts, and alleys of miserable houses let out in single 
rooms. A wilderness of dirt, rags, and hunger. A mud desert, 
chiefly inhabited by a tribe from whom employment has departed, 
or to whom it comes but fitfully and rarely. They are not skilled 
mechanics in anywise. They are but laborers — dock laborers, water- 
side laborers, coal-porters, ballast-iieavers, %ueh-like hewers of wood 
and drawers of water. But they have come into existence, and they 
propagate their wretched race. 

One grisly joke alone, methought, the skeleton seemed to play off 
here. It had stuck election bills on the walls, which the wind anil 
rain had deteriorated into suitable rags. It had even summed up 
the state of; the poll, in chalk, on the shutters of one ruined house. 
It adjured the free and independent Etarvers to vote for Thisman 


210 


THE UHCOMMEUCIAL TllAVELER, 


and vote for Tliatman ; not to plump, as they valued the state of 
parties and the national prosperity (both of great importance to them, 
I think); but, by returning Thisman and Thatman, each naught 
without the other, to compound a glorious and immortal whole. 
Surely the skeleton is nowhere more cruelly ironical iu the original 
monkish idea. 

Pondering in my mind tlie far-seeing schemes of Thisman and 
Tliaimati, and of the public blessing called Parly, or staying the 
degeneracy, physical and moral, of many thousands (who shall say 
how many?) of the English race; for devising emp’oyment useful 
to the community for those who want but to work and live; for 
equalizing rates, cultivating waste lands, facilitating emigration, 
and, above all things, saving and utilizing the on coming genera- 
tions, and thereby changing ever-growing national weakness into 
strength: pondering in my minJ, 1 say, these hopeful exertions, 1 
turned down a narrow street to look into a house or two. 

It was a dark street, with a dead wall on one side. Nearly all the 
outer doors of the houses stood open. I took the first entry, and 
knocked at a parlor door. Might I come in? 1 might, if I plased, 
sur. 

The woman of the room (Irish) had picked up some long strips 
of wood, about some wharf or barge; and they had just now been 
thrust into the otherwise empty grate to make two iion pots boil. 
There was some fish in one, and there were some potatoes in the 
other. The flare of the burning wood enabled me to see a table, and 
a broken chair o- so. and some old cheap crockery ornaments about 
the chimney-piece. It was not until 1 had spoken with the woman a 
few minutes that I saw a horrible brown heap on the floor iu a cor- 
ner, which, but for previous experience in this dismal wise, 1 might 
not have suspected to be “ the bed.” There was something thrown 
upon it; and I asked what that was. 

“ ’Tis the poor craythur that stays here, sur; and ’tis very bad 
she is, and ’tis very bad she’s been ibis long time, and ’tis belter 
she’ll never be, and ’tis slape she does all day, and ’tis wake she 
does all night, and ’tis the lead, sur.” 

” The what?” 

” The lead, sur. Sure ’tis the lead-mills, where the women gets 
took on at eighteen-pence a day, sur, when they makes application 
early enough, and is lucky and wanted; and ’tis lead pisoned she is, 
sur, and some of them gets lead-pisoned soon, and some of them 
gets lead-pisoned later, and some, but not many, niver; and ’tis all 
according to the constitooshun, sur, and some constilooshuns is 
strong, and some is weak; and her constitooshun is lead-pisoned, 
bad as can be, sur; and her brain is coming out at her ear, and it 
hurls h^r dreadful; and that’s what it is, and niver no more, and 
niver no less, sur.” 

The sick young woman moaning here, the speaker bent over her, 
took a bandage from her head, and tliiew open a back-door to let 
in the daylight upon it, from the smallest and most miserable back- 
yard 1 ever saw. 

’‘That’s what comma from her, sur, being lead-pisoned; and it 
comms from her night and day, the poor, sick craythur; and the 
pain of it is dreadful; and God he knows that my husband has 


THE FNCOMMEKCrAL TRAA^ELER. 


211 


walked tlie sthrcels these four days, beiiij; a laborer, and is walking 
them now, and is ready to work, and no work for him, and no Are 
and no food but the bit in the pot, and no more than ten shillings in 
a fortnight; God be good to us! and it is poor we are, and dark it 
is and cowld it is indeed.” 

Knowing that I could compensate myself thereafter for my self- 
denial, if 1 saw fit, 1 had resolved that I would give nothing in the 
course of these visits. 1 did this to try the people. 1 may state at 
once that my closest observation could not detect any indication 
whatever of an expectation that I would give money: they weie 
grateful to be talked to about their miserable affairs, and sympathy 
was plainly a comfort to them; but they neither asked for money 
in any case, nor showed tlie least trace of surprise or disappointment 
or resentment at my giving none. 

The woman’s married daughter had by this time come dowm, 
from her room on the floor above, to join in the conversation. 8he 
herself had been to tbe lead-mills very early that morning to be 
‘‘ took on,” but had not succeeded. She had four children; and 
her husband, also a water side laborer, and then out seeking work, 
seemed in no better case as to finding it than her father. She was 
English, and by nature of a buxom figure and cheerful. Both in 
her poor dress and in her mother’s there was an effort to keep up 
some appearance of neatness. ’ She knew all about the sufferings of 
the unfortunate invalid, and all about the lead-poisoning, and liow 
the symptoms came on, and how they grew — having often seen 
them. The very smell, when you stood inside the door of the 
works, was enough to knock you down, she said; yet she was going 
back again to get ” took on.” What could she do? Better be 
ulcerated and paralyzed for eighteen-pence a day, while it lasted, 
than see the children starve. 

A dark and squalid cupboard in this room, touching the back- 
door and all manner of offense, had been for some time , ’he sleep- 
ing-place of the sick young woman. But the nights being now 
wintry, and the blankets and coverlets ” gone to the leaving shop,” 
she lay all night w'here she lay all day, and was lying then. The 
woman of the room, her husband, this most miserable patient, and 
two others, lay on tlie one brown heap together for warmth. 

” God bless you, sir, and '“thunk you!” were the parting words 
from these people— gratefully spoken, too— with which I left this 
place. 

Some streets away, I tapped at another parlor door on another 
ground-floor. Looking in, I found a man, hie wife, and four chil- 
dren, sitting at a washing-stool by w^ay of table, at their dinner of 
bread and infused tea-leaves. There was a very scanty cindcrous 
fire in the grate by which they sat; and there was a tent bedstead 
in the room, witl^a bed upon it and a coverlet. The man did not 
rise when 1 went in, nor during my stay, but civilly inclined his 
head on my pulling off my hat, and, in answer to my inquiry 
whether 1 might ask him a question or two, said, “Certainly.” 
There being a window at each end of this room, back and front, it 
might have been ventilated; but it was shut up tight, to keep the 
cold out, and was very sickening. 

The wife, an intelligent, quick woman, rose and stood at her huS' 


212 


THE UXOOMMEKCIAL TKAVELER. 


baud’s elbow; and he glanced up at her as if for help. It soon ap- 
peared that he was rather deaf. He was a slow, simple fellow of 
about thirty. 

“ What was he by trade?” 

‘‘ Gentleman asks what are you by trade. John?” 

” I am a boiler-maker;” looking: about him with an exceedingly 
perplexed air, as if for a boiler that had unaccountably vanished. 

“lie ain’t a mechanic, you understand, sir,” the wife pul in; 
” he’s only a laborer.” 

“ Are you in work?” 

He looked up at his wife again. ” Gentleman says are you in 
work, John?” 

“ In work!” cried this forlorn boiler-maker, staring aghast at his 
wife, and then working his vision’s way very slowdy round to me: 
” Lord, no!” 

‘‘ Ah, he ain’t indeed 1” said the poor woman, shaking her head, 
as she looked at the four children in succession, and then at him. 

“Work!” said the boiler-maker, still seeking that evaporated 
boiler, first in my countenance, and then in the air, and then in the 
features of his second son at his knee: “ I wish I was in work! I 
haven’t had more than a day’s work to do this three weeks.” 

How have you lived?” 

A faint gleam of admiration lighted up the face of the would-be 
boiler-maker, as he stretched out the short sleeve of his threadbare 
canvas jacket, and replied, pointing her out, “ On the w'ork of the 
wife.” 

] forget where boiler-making had gone to, or where he supposed 
it had gone to; but he added some resigned information on that 
head, coupled with an expression of his belief that it was never 
coming back. 

The cheery heplfulness of the wife was very remarkable. She 
did slop-w'ork; made pea-jackets. She produced the pea-jacket 
then in hand, and spread it out upon the bed— -the only piece of 
furniture in the room on which to spread it. She showed how 
much of it s]ie made, and how much was afterward finished off by 
the machine. According to her calculation at the moment, deduct- 
ing what her trimming cost her, slnf got for making a pea-jacket 
tenpence-halfpenny, and she could make one in something less than 
two days. 

But, you see, it come to her through two hands, and of course it 
didn’t come through the second hand for nothing. Why did it come 
through the second hand at all? Why, this way. The second 
hand took the risk of the given-out work, you see. If she 
had money enough to pay the security deposit — call it twm pound — 
she could get Ihe work from the first hand, and so the second would 
not have to be deducted for. But, having do money at all, the 
second hand come in and took its profit, and so the whole worked 
down to tenpence-halfpenny. Having explained all this with great 
intelligence, even with some little pride, and 'without a whine or 
murmur, she folded her -w'ork again, sat down by her husband’s 
side at the washing-stool, and resumed her dinner of dry bread. 
Mean as the meal was, on the bare board, with its old gallipots for 
cups, and what not other sordid makeshifts; shabby as the woman 


THE UKCOxMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


213 

was in dress, and toninsj down toward the Bosjesman color, with 
want of nutriment and washing — there was positively a dignity in 
her, as the family anchor just holding the poor shipwrecked boiler- 
maker’s bark. When I left the room, the boiler-maker’s eyes were 
slowly turned toward her, as if his last hope of ever again seeing 
that vanished boiler lay in her direction. 

These people had never applied for parish relief but once; and 
that w'as when the husband met with a disabling accident at his 
work. 

Not many doors from here, I went into a room on the first floor. 
The woman apologized for its being in “an untidy mess.” The 
day was Saturday, and she was boiling the children’s clothes in a 
saucepan on the hearth. There was nothing else into which she 
could have put them. There 'was no crockery, or tinware, or tub, 
or bucket. There was an old gallipot or two, and there was a 
broken bottle or so, and there were some broken boxes for seats. 
The last small scraping of coals left w'as raked together in a corner 
of the floor. There were some rags in an open cupboard, also on 
the floor. ' In a corner of the room was a crazy old French bedstead, 
with a man lying on his back upon it hi a ragged pilot jacket, and 
rough oilskin fantail hat. The room was perfectly black. It was 
difficult to believe, at first, that it was not purposely colored black, 
the w'alls'were so begrimed. 

As 1 stood opposite the woman boiling the children’s clothes— 
she had not even a piece of soap to wash them with— and apologiz- 
ing for her occupation, 1 could take in all these things without ap- 
pearing to notice them, and could even correct my inventory. 1 
had missed, at the first glance, some half a pound of bread in the 
otherwisercmpty safe, an old ragged crinoline hanging on the han- 
dle of the door by which I had entered, and certain fragments of 
rusty Iron scattered on the floor, which looked like broken tools, and 
a piece of stove-pipe. A child stood looking on. On the box; near- 
est to the fire sat two younger children; one a delicate and pretty 
little creature, whom the other sometimes kissed. 

This woman, like the last, was wofully shabby, and was degen- 
erating to the Bosjesman complexion. But her figure, and the 
ghost of a certain vivacity about her, and the specter of a dimple 
in her cheek, carried my memory strangely back to the old days of 
the Adelphi Theater, London, when Mrs. Fitzwilliam was the 
friend of Victorine. , 

“ May I ask you what your husband is?” 

“ lie’s a coalporter, sir ’’—with a. glance and a sigh toward the 
bed. 

“ Is he out of work?” 

“Oh, yes, sir! and work’s at all times very, very scanty with 
him: and now he’s laid up.” 

“ It’s my leg,” said the man upon the bed. ‘‘ I’ll unroll 'em.”" 
And immediately began. 

“ Have you any older children?” 

“ 1 h^ve a daughter that does the needlework, and 1 have a son 
that does what he can. She’s at her work now, and he’s trying for 
work.” 

“ Dq they live here?” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


214 

“ They sleep here. They can’t, afford to pay more rent, and so 
they come here at night. The rent is ver}'^ hard upon us. It’s rose 
upnn us, too, now — sixpence a week — on account of these new 
changes in the law about the rates. We are a week behind; the 
landlord’s been shaking and rattling at that door frightfully ; he 
says he’ll turn us out. 1 don’t know what’s to come of it.” 

The man upon the bed ruefully interposed, “Here’s my legs. 
The skin’s broke, besides the swelling. 1 have had a many kicks, 
working, one way and another.” 

He looked at his legs (which were much discolored and misshapen) 
for awhile, and then, appearing to remember that they were not 
popular with his famil 3 % rolled them up again, as if they were 
something in the nature of maps or plans that were not wanted to 
be referred to, lay hopelessly down on his back once more with his 
fantaii hat over his face, and stirred not. 

“ Do your eldest son and daughter sleep in that cupboard?” 

“ Yes,” replied the woman. 

“ AVilh the children?” 

“ Yes. We have to get together for warmth. VVe have little to 
cover us.” 

“ Have you nothing by you to eat but the piece of bread I see 
there?” 

“ Nothing. And we had the rest of the loaf for our breakfast, 
with water. I don’t know what’s to come of it.” 

“ Have you no prospect of improvement?” 

“If my eldest son earns anylhing to-day, he’ll bring it home. 
Then we shall have something to eat to-night, and may be able to do 
something toward the rent. If not, I don’t know what’s to come 
of it.” 

'• This is a sad state of things.” 

“ Yes, sir; it’s a hard, hard, life. ’Fake care of the stairs as j^ou 
go, sir— they’re broken— and good day, sir!” * 

’Fhese people had a mortal dread of entering the workhouse and 
received no out of-door relief. 

In another room, in still another tenement, I found a very decent 
woman with five children— the last a bab 3 ^ and she herself a 
patient of the parish doctor— to whom, her husband being in the 
hospital, the Union allowed, for the support of herself and family, 
four shillings a week and five ‘loaves. 1 suppose when Thisman, 
IVl.P., and Thatman, M.P., and the Public-blessing Party, lay their 
heads together in course of time, and come to an equalization of rat- 
ing, she may go down to the dance of death to the tune of sixpence 
more. 

I could enter no other houses for that one while, for I could not 
bear the contemplation of the children. Such heart as I had sum- 
moned to sustain me against the miseries of the adults failed me 
when 1 looked at the children. I saw how young they were, how 
hungry, how serious and still. I thought of them sick and dying 
in those lairs. I think of them dead without anguish; but to think 
of them so suffering and so dying quite unmanned me. 

Down by the river’s bank in Ratcliff, I was turning upward by a 
side street, therefore, to regain the railwajL when my eyes rested on 
the inscription across the road, “ East London Children’s Hos- 


THE UHCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 215 

pital.” I could scarcely have seen an inscription better suited to 
my frame of mind; and I went across, and went strai^>;ht in. 

1 found the Children’s Hospital established in an old sail-loft or 
storehouse, of the rou^^hest nature, and on the simplest means. 
There were trap doors in the floors, where goods had been hoisted 
up and down; heavy feet ami heavy weights had started every knot 
in the well-trodden planking; inconvenient bulks and beams and 
awkward staircases perplexed my passage through the wards. But 
I found it airy, sweet, and clean. In its seven-aud-thiity beds 1 
saw but little beauty; for starvation in the second or third genera- 
tion takes a pinched look; but I saw the suiferings botli of infancy 
and childhood tenderly assuaged; 1 heard the little patients answer- 
ing to pet playful names; the light touch of a delicate lady laid bare 
the wasted sticks of arms forme to pity; and the claw-like little 
hands, as she did so, twined themselves lovingly around her ived- 
ding-ring. 

One baby mite there was as pretty as any of Baphael’s angels. 
The tiny head was bandaged for water on the brain; and it was 
suffering with acute bronchitis too, and made from time to time a 
plaintive, though not impatient or complaining, little sound. The 
smooth curve of the cheeks and of the chin was faultless in its con- 
densation of infantine beauty, and the large bright eyes were most 
lovely. It happened, as I stopped at the foot of the bed, that these 
eyes rested upon mine with that wistful expression of wondering 
thoughtfulness which we all know sometimes in very little children. 
They remained fixed on mine, and never turned from me while 1 
stood there. When the .utterance of that plaintive sound shook the 
little form, the gaze still remained unchanged. I felt although the 
child implored me to tell the story of the little hospital in which it 
was sheltered to any gentle heart I could address. Laying my 
world- worn hand upon the little unmarked clasped hand at the 
chin, 1 give it a silent promise that 1 would do so. 

A gentleman and lady, a young husband and wife, have bcught 
and fitted up this building for its present noble use, and have quietly 
settled themselves in it as its medical officers and directors. Both 
have had considerable practical experience of medicine and surgery; 
he as house surgeon of a great London Hospital; she as a very ear- 
nest student, tested by severe examination, and also as a nurse of 
the sick poor during the prevalence of cholera. 

With every qualification to lure them away, with youth and ac- 
complishments and tastes and habits that can have no response in 
any breast near them, close begirt b}’’ every repulsive circumstance 
inseparable from such a neighb^orhood, there they dwell. They live 
in the hospital itself, and their rooms are on its first floor. Sitting 
at their dinner-table, they could hear the ciy of one of the children 
in pain. The lady’s piano, drawing materials, books, and other 
such evidences of refinement, are as much a part of the rough 
place as the iron bedsteads of the little patients. Tliey are put to 
shifts for room, like passengers on board ship. The dispenser of 
medicines (attracted to them not by self-interest, but by their own 
magnetism and that of their cause) sleeps in a recess in the dining- 
room, and has his washing apparatus in the sideboard. 

Their contented manner of making the best of the things around 


216 THE UHCOMMEKCIAL TKAVELEK. 

them I found so pleasantly inseparable from their useful ness! Their 
pride in this partition that we put up ourselves, or in that partition 
that we took down, or in that other partition that we moved, or in the 
stove that was given us for the waiting-room, or in our nightly 
conversion of the little consulting-room into a smoking-room! Their 
admiration of the situation, if we could only get rid of its one ob- 
jectionable incident, the coal-yard at the backl '' Our hospital-car- 
riage presented by a friend, and very useful. ” That was my presen- 
tation of a perambulator, for which a coach-house had been 
discovered in a corner down stairs, just large enough to hold it. 
Colored prints, in all stages of preparation for being added to those 
already decorating the wards, were plentiful; a charming wooden 
phenomenon of a bird, with an impossible top-knot, who ducked 
his head when you set a counter- weight going, had been inaugurated 
as a public statue that very morning; and trotting about among the 
beds, on familiar terms w'ilh all the patients, was a comical mongrel 
dog, called Poodles. This comical dog (quite a tonic in himself) 
was found characteristically starving at the door of the institution, 
and was taken in and fed, and has lived here ever since. An ad- 
mirer of his mental endowments has presented him with a collar 
bearing the legend, “ Judge not Poodles by external appearances.” 
He wuis merrily v;agging his tail on a boy’s pillow when he made 
this modest appeal to me. 

When the hospital was first opened, in January of the present 
year, the people could not possibly conceive but that somebody paid 
for the services rendered there; and were disposed to claim them as 
a right, and to find fault if out of temper. They soon came to 
understand the case better, and have much increased in gratitude. 
The mothers of the patients avail themselves very freely of the visit- 
ing rules; the fathers often on Sunda 5 "s. There is an unreasonable 
(but still, 1 think, touching and intelligible) tendency in the parents 
to take a child away to its wretched home, if on the point of death. 
One boy who had been thus carried off on a rainy night, when in a 
violent state of inflammation, and who had been afterward brought 
back, had been recovered with exceeding difficulty; but he was a 
jolly boy, with a specially strong interest in his dinner, when 1 saw 
him. 

Insufficient food and unwdiolesorne living are the main causes of 
disease among these small patients. So nourishment, cleanliness, and 
ventilation are the main remedies. Discharged patients are looked 
after, and invited to come and dine now and then; so are certain 
famishing creatures who were never patients. Both the lady and 
gentleman are well acquainted, not only with the histories of the 
patients and their familes, but with the characters and circumstances 
of great numbers of their neighbors: of these tliey keep a register. 
It is their common experience that people, sinking dowm by 
inches into deeper anti deeper poverty, will conceal it) even from 
them, if possible, unto the very last extremitj^ 

The nurses of this hospital are all young — ranging, say, from 
nineteen to four-and-twenty. They have even Within these narrow 
limits what many well-endowed hospitals would not give them, a 
comfortable room of their own in which to take their meals. It is 
n beautiful truth, that interest in the children, and sympathy with 


THE UifCOirMERCIAL. TRAYELER. 


217 


their sorrows, bind these young women to their places far more 
strongly than any other consideration could. The best skilled of 
the nurses came originally from a kindred neighborhood, almost as 
poor; and she knew how much the work was needed. She is a fair 
dressmaiver. The hospital cannot pay her as many pounds in the 
year as there are months in it; and one day tl'e lady regarded it as a 
duty to apeak to her about her improving her prospects, and fol- 
lowing her trade. No, she said; she could never be^so useful or so 
happy elsewhere any more; she must stay among the children. 
And she stays. One of the nurses, as I passed her, was washing a 
baby boy. Likina her pleasant face, I stopped to speak to her charge 
— a common, ballet-headed, frowning charge enough, laying hold 
of his own nose with a slippery grasp, and staring very solemnly out 
of a blanket. The melting of the pleasant face into delighted smiles, 
as this young gentleman gave an unexpected kick, and laughed at 
me, was almost worth my previous pain. 

An affecting play was acted in Paris years ago, called “ The Chil- 
dren’s Doctor. ” As I parted from my children’s Doctor now in 
question, 1 saw in his easy black necktie, in his loose buttoned black 
frock-coat, in his pensive face, in the flow of his dark hair, in his 
eyelashes, in the very turn of his mustache, the exact realization of 
the Paris artist’s ideal as it was presented on the stage. But no 
romancer that 1 know' of haB had the boldness to prefigure the life 
and home of this young husband and jmung wife in the Children’s 
Hospital in the East of London. 

1 came away from Ratcliff by the Stepney railway station to the 
terminus at Fenchurch Street. Any one wdio will reverse that 
route may retrace my steps. 


XXNl. 

ABOARD SHIP. 

My journeys as Uncommercial Traveler for the firm of Human 
Interest Brothers have not slackened since I last reported of them, 
but have kept me contiiiually on the move. I remain in the same 
idle employment. I never solicit an order, 1 never get any com- 
mission, I am the rolling stone that gathers no moss — unless any 
should by chance be found among these samples. 

Some half a year ago I found myself in my idlest, dreamiest, and 
least accountable condition altogether, on board ship, in the harbor 
of the city of New York, in the United States of America. Of all 
the good ships afloat, mine w^as the good steamship “ Russia,” 
Capt. Cook, Cuiiard Line, bound for Liverpool. What more could 
1 wish for? 

I had nothing to wish for but a prosperous passage. My salad 
days, when 1 was green of visage and sea-sick being gone with bet- 
ter things (and no worse), no coming event cast its sliadows before. 

I might, but a, few moments previously, have imitated Sterne, and 
said; ” ‘And yet, methinks, Eugenius ’—laying my forefinger wist- 
fully oh his coat-sleeve, tlius— ‘and yet, methinks, Eugenius, ’tis 
but sorry work to part with thee, for what fresh fields. . . my 
dear Eugenius. . . can be fresher than thou art^ and in what past- 


^18 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


ures new shall I find Eliza, or call her, Eugenius, if thou wilt, 
Annie?’ I say 1 might have done this; but Eugenius was gone 
and I hadn’t done it. 

I was resting on a sky-light on the hurricane deck, watching the 
working of the ship very slowly about, tliat she might head for 
England. It was high noon on a most brilliant day in April, and 
the beautiful bay was glorious and glowing. Full many a time, on 
shore there, had 1 seen the snow come down, down, down (itself 
like down), until it lay deep in all the ways of men, anil particularly 
as it seemed, in my way, for 1 had not gone dry shod many hours 
for months. Within two or three days last past had 1 watched the 
feathery fall setting in with the ardor ot a new idea, instead of drag- 
ging at the skirts of a worn-out winter; and pertnitting glimpses of 
a fresh young spring. But a bright sun and a clear sky had melted 
the snow in the great crucible of nature, and it had been poured out 
again that morning over sea and land, transformed into myriads of 
gold and silver sparkles. 

The ship was fragrant with flowers. Something of the old Mexican 
passion tor flowers may have gradually passed into North America, 
wliere flowers are luxuriously grown and tastefully combined in the 
richest profusion; but, be that as it may, such gorgeous farewells 
in flowers had come on board, that the small offlcers’ cabin on deck, 
which I tenanted, bloomed over into the adjacent scuppers, and 
banks of other flowers that it couldn’t hold made a garden of the 
unoccupied tables in the passengers’ saloon. These delicious scents 
of the shore, mingling with the fresh air of the sea, made the atmos- 
nhere a dreamy, an enchanting one. And so, with the watch aloft 
setting all sails, and with the screw below revolving at a mighty 
rate, and occasionally giving the ship an angry shake for resisting, 
1 fell into my idlest ways, and lost myself. 

As for instance, whether it was 1 lying there, or some other entity 
even more mysterious, was a matter 1 was far too lazy to look into. 
What did it signify to me if it were I? or to the more mysterious 
entity, if it were he? Equally as to the remembrances that drowsily 
floated by me, or by liim, why ask w'hen or where the things hap- 
pened? Was it not enough that they befell at sometime, some- 
where? 

There was that assisting at the church service on board another 
steamship, one Sunday, in a stiff breeze. Pei haps on the passage 
out. No matter. Pleasant to hear the ship’s bells go as like 
church-bells as they could; pleasant to see the watch off duty mus- 
tered and come in: best hats, best Guernseys, washed hands and 
faces, smoothed licads. But then arose a set of circumstances so 
rampantly comical, that no check which the gravest intentions 
could put upon them would hold them in hand. Thus the scene. 
Some seventy passengers assembled at the saloon tables. Prayer- 
books on tables. Ship rolling heavily. Pause. No minister. 
Rumor has related that a modest young clergyman on board has 
responded to the captain’s request that he will officiate. Pause 
again, and very heavy rolling. 

Closed double doors suddenly burst open, and two strong 
stewards skate in, supporting minister between them. General ap- 
pearance as of somebody picked up drunk and incapable, and under 


THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TRAVELER. 219 

tJbnveyance to slation-house. Stoppage, pause, aud particularly 
heavy rolling. Stewards watch their opportunity and balance them- 
selves, but cannot balance minister; who, struggling with a droop- 
ing head and a backward tendency, seems determined to return be- 
low, while they are as deter mined'that he shall be got to the read- 
ing-desk in mid-saloon. Desk portable, slidin^z away down a long 
table, and aiming itself at the breasts of various members of the 
congregation. Here the double doors, which have been carefully 
closed by other stewards, fly open again, and worldly passenger 
tumbles in, seemingly with pale-ale designs; who, seeking friend, 
says, “ .Joe!” Perceiving incongruity, says, ” Hullo! Beg yer 
pardon!” and tumbles out again. All this lime the congregation 
have been breaking up into sects— as the manner of congregations 
often is— each sect sliding away by itself, and all pounding the 
weakest sect which slides first into the corner. Utmost point of dis- 
sent soon attained in every corner, and violent rolling. Stewards 
at length make a dash; conduct minister to the mast in the center 
of the saloon, which he embraces with both arms; skate out; and 
leave him in that condition to arrange aftairs with flock. 

There was anotlier Sunday, when an officer of the ship road the 
service. It was quiet and impressive, until we fell upon the dan- 
gerous and perfectly unnecessary experiment of striking up a hymn. 
After it was given out, we all rose, but everybody left it to some- 
body else to begin. Silence resulting, the officer (no singer himself), 
rather reproachfully gave us the first line again, upon which a rosy 
pippin of an old gentleman, remarkable throughout the passage f(»r 
his cheerful politeness, gave a little stamp with his boot (as if he 
were leading off a country dance), and blithely warbled us into a 
show of joining. At the end of the first verse we became, through 
these tactics, so much refreshed and encouraged, that none of us. 
howsoever unmelodious, would submit to be left out of the second 
verse; while, as to the third, we lifted up our voices in a sacred 
howl that left it doubtful whether we were the more boastful of 
the sentiments wm united in professing, or of professing them with 
a most discordant defiance of time and tune. 

‘‘Lord bless rrs!” thought I, wiien the fresh remembrance of 
these things made me laugh heartily alone in the dead wmter gur- 
gling waste of the night, what tiiire 1 was wedged into my berth by 
a wooden bar, or I must have rolled out of it, ‘‘ what errand wuis I 
then upon, and to what Abyssinian point had public events then 
marched? No matter as to me. And as to them, if the wonderful 
popular rage for a plaything (utterly confounding in its inscrutable 
unreason), had not then lighted on a poor young savage boy, and a 
poor old screw of a horse, and hauled the first off bjMhe hair of his 
princely head to ‘ inspect’ British volunteers, and hauled the second 
off by the hair of his equine tail to the Crystal Palace, why so much 
the better for all of us outside Bedlam!” 

So, sticking to the ship, 1 was at the trouble of asking myself 
would I like to show the grog distribution in ” the fiddle” at noon 
to the Grand United Amalgamated Total Abstinence Society? Yes, 
1 think I should. I think it wmuld do them good to smell the rum 
under the circumstances. Over the grog, mixed in a bucket, pre- 
sides the boatsw'ain’s male, small tin can in hand, Enter the crew, 


220 THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER.* 

the guilty consumers, the grown-up brood of Giant Despair, in 
contradistinction 1 o the baud of youthful aneel Hope.^ Some in boots, 
some in legiiings, some in tarpaulin over -alls, some in frocks, some 
in pea-coats, a very few in jackets, most with sou’-wester hats, all 
with something rough and rugged round the throat; all dripping 
salt water wliere they stand; all pelted by weather, besmeared with 
grease, and blackened by the sooty rigging. 

Each man’s knife in its sheath in his girdle, loosened for dinner. 
As the first man, with a knowingly-kindled eye, watches the filling 
of the poisoned chalice (truly but a very small tin mug, to be 
prosaic), and, tossing back his head, tosses the contents into himself, 
and passes the empty chalice, and passes on, so the second man, 
with an anticipatory wipe of his mouth on sleeve or handkerchief, 
bides his turn, and drinks and hands and passes on, in whom, and 
in each as his turn approaches beams a knowingly-kindled eye, a 
brighter temper, and a suddenly-awakened tendency to be jocose 
witli some shipmate. Nor do I even observe that the man in charge 
of the ship’s lamps, who, in right of his office, has a double allow- 
ance of poisoned chalices, seems thereby vastly degraded, even 
though he empties the chalices into himself, one after the other, 
much as if he were delivering their contents at some absorbent es- 
tablishment in which he had no personal interest. But vastly com- 
forted I note (hem all to be, on deck presently, even to the circula- 
tion of redder blood in their cold blue knuckles; and when I look 
up at them lying out on the yards, and holding on for life among 
the beaten sails, I cannot for my life see the justice of visiting on 
them— or on me — the drunken crimes of any number of criminals 
arraigned at the heaviest assizes. 

Abetting myself in my idle humor, 1 closed my eyes, and recalled 
life on board of one of those mail packets, as 1 lay, part of that day, 
in the Bay of New York, O! The regular life began— mine always 
did, for 1 never got to sleep afterward — with the rigging of the 
pump while it was yet daik and washing down of decks. Any 
enormous giant at a prodigious hydropathic establishment, consci- 
entiously undergoing the >vater-cure in all its departments, and ex- 
tremely particular about cleaning his teeth, would make those noises. 
Swash, splash, scrub, nib, toothbrush, bubble, sw^ash, splash, bubble, 
toothbrush, splash, splash, bubble, rub. Then the day would 
break, and, descending from my berth by a graceful ladder com- 
posed of half-opened drawers beneath it, 1 would re-open my outer 
dead light and my inner sliding window (closed by a watchman 
during the water-cure), and would look out at the long-rolling, lead- 
colored, white-topped waves over which the dawn, on a cold winter 
morning, cast a level lonely glance, and through which the ship 
fought lier melancholy way at a terrific rate. And now, lying down 
again, awaiting the season for broiled ham and tea, I would be com- 
pelled to listen to the voice of conscience — the screw. 

It might be, in some cases, no more than the voice of stomach; 
but 1 called it in my fancy by the higher name. Because it seemed 
to me that we were all of us, all day long, endeavoring to stifle the 
voice. Because it was under everybody’s pillow, everybody’s plate, 
everybody’s camp-stool, everybod 3 '^’s book, everybody’s occupation. 
Because we pretended not to hear it, especially at meal-times, even- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


221 

ing whist, and morning conversation on deck; bnt it was alwa 5 '^s 
among us in an under monotone, not to be drowned in pea-soup, 
not to be shuffled with cards, not to be diverted by books, not to be 
knitted into any pattern, not to be walked away from. It was smoked 
in the weediest cigar, and drunk in the strongest cocktail ; it was con- 
veyed on deck at noon with limp ladies, who lay there in their wrap- 
pers until the stars shone; it waited at able with the stewards; nobody 
could put it out with the lights. It was considered (as on shore) ill 
bred to acknowledge the voice of conscience. It was not polite to 
mention it. One squally day an amiable gentleman in love gave 
much offense to a surrounding circle, including the object of his 
attachment, by saying of it, after it had goaded liim over two easy- 
chairs and a skylight, “ Screw!” 

Sometimes it would appear subdued. In fleeting moments, when 
bubbles of champagne pervaded the nose, or when there was ” hot 
pot” in the bill of fare, or when an old dish we had had regularly 
every day was described in that official document by a new name — 
under such excitements, one would almost believe it hushed. The 
ceremony of washing plates on deck, performed after every meal by 
a circle as of ringers of crockery triple-bob majors for a prize, 
would keep it down. Hauling the reel, taking the sun at noon, 
posting the twmnty four hours’ run, altering the ship’s time .by the 
meridian, casting the waste food overboard, and attracting the eager 
gulls that followed in our wake— these events would suppress it for 
awhile. But, the instant any break or pause took place in any such 
diversion, the voice would be at it again, importuning us to the last 
extent. A newly-marri5d young pair, who walked the deck affec- 
tionately some twent}^ miles per day, would, in the full flush of 
their exercise, suddenly become stricken by it, and stand trembling, 
but Ollier wise immovable, under its reproaches. 

When fins terrible monitor was ndost severe with us was when the 
time approached for our retiring to our dens for the night; when 
the lighted candles in the saloon grew fewer and few^er; when the 
deserted glasses with spoons in them grew more and more numerous; 
when waifs of toasted cheese, and strays of sardines fried in batter, 
slid languidly to and fro in the table-racks; when the man who al- 
ways read had shut up his book, and blown out his candle; when 
the man who always talked had ceased from troubling; when the 
man who was always medically reported as going to have delirium 
tremens had put it off till to-morrow; when the man who every 
night devoted himself to a midnight smoke on deck twm hours in 
length, and who every night was in bed within ten minutes after- 
w^ard, was buttoning himself -up in his third coat for his hardy vigil: 
for then, as w^e fell off one by one, and, entering our several hutches, 
came into a .peculiar atmosphere of bilge-water and Windsor soap, 
the voice would shake us to the center. Woe to us when we sat 
down on our sofa, watching the swinging candle forever trying and 
retrying to stand upon his head! or our coat upon its peg, imitating 
us as we appeared in our gymnastic days by sustaining itself hori- 
zontally from the walls, in emulation of the lighter and more facile 
towels! Then would the voice especially claim us for its prey, and 
rend us all to pieces. 

Bights out, we in our berths, and the wind rising, the voice grows 


222 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


an.ejrier and deeper. Under the mattress and under the pillotv, im-. 
der the sofa and under the washin^r-stand, under the ship and under 
the sea, seeming? to rise from the foundations under the earth with 
every scoop of the great Atlantic (and oh! why scoop so?) always 
the voice. Vain to deny its existence in the uiirht season; impossi- 
ble to be hard of hearing screw, screw, screw! Sometimes il lifts 
out of the water and revolves with a whirr, like a ferocious fire- 
work-— except that it never expends itself, but is always ready to go 
off again; sometimes it seems to be in anguish and shivers; some- 
times it seems to be terrified by its last plunge, and has a fit which 
causes it to struggle, quiver, and for an instant slop., And now the 
ship sets in rolling, as only ships so fiercely screwed through time 
and space, day and night, fair weather and foul, can roll. 

Did she ever take a roll before like that last? Did she ever take 
a roll before like this worse one that is coming now? Here is the 
partition at my ear down in the deep on the lee side. Are w’c ever 
coming up again together? I think not; the partition and 1 are so 
long about it that 1 really do believe we have overdone it this time. 
Heavens, \\hat a scoop! What a deep scoop, what a hollow scoop, 
what a long scoop! Will it ever end, and can we bear the heavy 
mass of water we have taken on board, and which has let loose all 
the table furniture in the officers’ mess, and has beaten open the 
door of the little passage between the purser and me, and is swash- 
ing about even there and even here? The i^urser snores reassur- 
ingly, and the ship’s bells striking, Ihear thecheerful “ All’s well!” 
of the watch musically given back the length of the deck, as the 
lately-diving partition, now high in air, tries (unsoftened by what 
we have gone through together) to force me out of bed and berth. 

” All’s well!” Comforting to know, though surely all might be 
better. Put aside the rolling and the rush of water, and think of 
darting through such darkness with such velocity. Think of any 
other similar object coming in the opposite direction! 

Whether there may be an attraction in two such moving bodies 
out at sea, which may help accident to bring them into collision? 
Thoughts, too, arise (the voice never silent all the while, but mar- 
velously suggestive) of the gulf below; of the strange unfruitful 
mountain ranges and deep valleys over which we are passing; of 
monstrous fish midway; of the ship’s suddenly allering her course 
on her own account, and with a wild plunge settling down, and 
making that voyage with a crew of dead discoverers. How, loo. 
one recalls an almost universal tendency on the part of passengers 
to stumble, at some time or other in the day, on the topic of a cer- 
tain large steamer making this same run, which was lost at sea, and 
never heard of more. Everybody has seemed under a spell, com- 
pelling approach to the threshold of the grim subject, stoppage, dis- 
comfiture, and pretense of never having been riear it. The boat- 
swain’s wlii.stle sounds! A change in the wind, hoarse orders issu- 
ing, and the watch very busy. Sails come crashing home overhead, 
ropes (that seem all knot) ditto; every man engaged appears to have 
twenty feet, with twenty times the average amount of stamping 
power in each. Gradually the noise slackens, the hoarse cries die 
away, the boatswain’s whistle softens into the soothing and con- 


THE UHCO:NnrEKCIAL TRAVELER, 

tented notes, which rather reluctantly admit that the iob is done 
for the time, and the voice sets in again. 

Thus come unintelligible dreams ot up hill and down, and swing- 
ing andswayino, until consciousness revives of atmospherical A'S ind- 
sor soap and bilge- water, and the voice announces that the giant has 
come for the water cure again. 

Such were my fanciful reminiscences as I lay, part of that day, 
in the Bay of New York, O! Also as we passed clear of the Nar- 
rows, anti got out to sea; also in many an idle hour at sea in sunny 
weather! At length the observations and computations showed that 
we should make tlie coast ot Ireland to-night. So 1 stood watch on 
deck all night to-night, to see how we made the coast ot Ireland. 

Very dark, and the sea most brilliantly phosphorescent. Great 
way ou tlie ship, and double look-out kept. Vigilant captain on the 
bridge, vigilant first officer looking over the port side, vigilant sec- 
ond officer standing by the quartermaster at the compass, vigilant 
third otficer posted at the stern -rail with a lantern. No passengers 
on the quiet decks, but expectation everywhere nevertheless. The 
two men at the wheel very steady, very serious, and very prompt to 
answer orders. An order issued sharply now and then, and echoed 
back; otherwise thenight drags slowly, silently, and with no change. 

All of a sudden, at the blank hour of two in the morning, a vague 
movement of relief from a long strain expresses itself in all hands; 
the third officer’s lantern twinkles, and he fires a rocket, and another 
rocket. A sullen solitary light is pointed out to me in the black sky 
yonder. A change is expected in the light, but none takes place. 
“ Give them two more rockets, Mr. Vigilant.” Two more, and a 
blue-light burnt. All 03^68 watch the light again. At last a little 
toy sky-rocket is flashed up from it; and, even as that small streak 
in the darkness dies away, we are telegraphed to Queenstown, Liv- 
erpool. and London, and back again under the ocean to America. 

Then up come the half-dozen passengers who are going ashore at 
Queenstown, and up comes the mail agent in charge ot the bags, 
and up come the men who are to carry the bags into the mail tender 
that will come oil tor them out of the harbor. Lamps and lanterns 
gleam here and there about the decks, and impeding bulks are 
knocked away wdth handspikes; and the port-side bulwark, barren 
but a moment ago, bursts into a crop of heads of seamen, stewards, 
and engineers. 

The light begins to be gained upon, begins to be alongside, begins 
to be left astern. More rockets, and, between us and the land, 
steams beautifully the Inman steamship ‘‘ City of Paris,” for New 
York, outward bound. We observe with complacency that the 
wind is dead against her (it being with us), and that she rolls and 
pitches. (The sickest passenger on board is the most delighted by 
this circumstance.) Time rushes by as we rush on, and now we 
see the light in Queenstown Harbor, and now the lights of the mail 
tender coming out to us. What vagaries the mail tender performs 
on the way, in every point of the compass, especially in those where 
she has no business, and why she performs them. Heaven only 
knows! At length she is seen plunging within a cable’s length of 
our port broadside, and is being roared at through our speaking 
trumpets to do this thing, and not to do that, and to stand by the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


224 

other, as if she were a very demented tender indeed. Then, we 
slackening; amidst a deafening roar of steam, this much-abused ten- 
der is made fast to us hawsers, and the men in readiness carry 
the bags aboard, and return for more, bending under their burdens, 
and looking just like the pasteboard figures of the miller and his 
men in the theater of our boyhood, and comporting themselves 
almost as unsteadily. All the while the unfortunate lender plunges 
high and low, and is roared at. Then the Queenstowm^ passengers 
are put on board of her. with infinite plunging and roaring, and the 
tender gets heaved up on the sea to that surprising extent that she 
looks within an ace of Washing aboard of us, high and dry. Roared 
at with contumel}'^ to the last, this wretched tender is at length let 
go, with a fin.al plunge of great ignominy, and falls spinning into 
our wake. 

The voice of conscience resumed its dominion as the day climbed 
up the sky, and kept by all of us passengers into port; kept by us 
as we passed other lighthouses, and dangerous islands off the coast, 
where some of the officers, with whom 1 stood my w^atch, had gone 
ashore in sailing ships in fogs (and of which, by that token, they 
seem to have quite an affectionate remembrance), and past the Welsh 
coast, and past the Cheshire coast, and past everything and every- 
where lying between our ship and her own special dock in the Mer- 
sey. Oft which, at last, at nine of the clock, on a fair evening early 
in May, we stopped, and the voice ceased. A very curious sensa- 
tion, notunlike having my own ears stopped, ensued upon that 
silence; and it was with a no less curious sensation that I went over 
the side of the good Cunard ship “ Russia ” (whom prosperity attend 
through all her voyages!) and surveyed the outer hull of the gra- 
cioiis monster that the voice had inhabited. So perhaps, shall we 
all, in the spirit, one day survey the frame that held the busier 
voice from which my vagrant fancy derived this similitude. 


XXXll. 

A liITTLE DINNER IN AN HOUR. 

It fell out, on a day in this last autumn, that I had to go down 
from London to a place of seaside resort, on an hour’s business, ac- 
companied by my esteemed friend Bullfinch. Let the place ot sea- 
side resort be, for the nonce, called Namelesston. 

1 had been loitering about Paris in very hot weather, pleasantly 
breakfasting in the open air in the garden of the Palais Royal or the 
Tuileries, pleasantly dining in the open air in the Elysian Fields, 
pleasantly taking my cigar and lemonade in the open air on the 
Italian Boulevard towardlhe small hours after midnight. Bullfinch 
— an excellent man of business — had summoned me back across the 
Channel, to transact this said hour’s business at Xamelesston; and 
thus it fell out that Bullfinch and I w^ere in a railway carriage 
together on our way to Namelesston, each with his return ticket in 
his waistcoat pocket. 

Says Bullfinch, “ I have a proposal to make. Let us dine at the 
Temeraire.” 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 225 

1 asked Hullfinch did he recommend the Temeraire? inasmuch as 
1 had not been rated on the books ot the Temeraire tor many years. 

Bullfinch declined to accept the responsibility of recommending 
the Temeraire, but, on the whole, was rather sanguine about it 
He “ seemed to remember,” Bullfinch said, that he had dined well 
there. A plain dinner, but good. Certainly not like a Parisian 
dinner (here Bullfinch obviously became the prey of want of confi- 
dence), but of its kind very fair. 

1 appeal to Bullfinch’s intimate knowledge of my wants and ways 
to decide whether 1 was usually ready to be pleased with any din- 
ner. or— for the matter of that— with anything that was fair ot its 
kind, and really what it claimed to be. Bullfinch doing me the 
honor to respond in the affirmative, 1 agreed to ship myself as an 
able trencherman on board the Temeraire. 

” Now, our plan shall be this. ’’says Bullfinch, with his forefinger 
at his nose. “ As soon as we gett.o Namelesston we’ll drive straight 
to the Temeraire, and order a little dinner in an hour. And as we 
shall not have more than enough time in which to dispose of it 
comfortably, what do you say to giving the house the best oppor- 
tunities of serving it hot and quickly by diningin the coffee-room?” 

What I had to say was. Certainly. Bullfinch (who is by nature 
of a hopeful constitution) then began to babble of green geese. But 
1 checked him in that Falstaffian vein, urging considerations of time 
and cookery. 

In due sequence of events we drove up to the Temeraire, and 
alighted. A youth in livery received us on the doorstep. ” Looks 
well,” says Bullfinch, confidentially. And then aloud, ” Coffee- 
Toom!” 

The youth in livery (now perceived to be moldy) conducted us to 
the desired haven, and was enjoined by Bullfinch to send the waiter 
at once, as we wished to order a little dinner in an hour. Then 
Bullfinch and 1 waited for the waiter, until, the waiter continuing 
to wait in some unknown and invisible sphere of action, we rang 
for the waiter; which ring produced the waiter, who announced 
himself as not the waiter who ought to wait upon us, and who 
didn’t wait a moment longer. 

So Bullfinch approached the coffee-room door, and melodiously 
pitching his voice into a bar where two young ladies were keeping 
the books of the Temeraire, apologetically explained that we wished 
to order a little dinner in an hour, and that we were debarred from 
the execution of our inoffensive purpose by consignment to solitude. 
Hereupon one of the young ladies rang a bell, which reproduced — 
^t the bar this time — the waitef who was not the waiter who ought 
to wait upon us; that extraordinary man, whose life seemed con- 
sumed in waiting upon people to say that he wouldn’t wait upon 
them, repeated his former protest with great indignation, and re- 
tired. 

Bullfinch, with a fallen countenance, was about to say to me, 

This won’t do,” when the waiter who ought to wait upon us left 
off keeping us waiting at last. “Waiter,” said Bullfinch, pite- 
ously, “ we have been a longtime waiting.” The waiter who ought 
to wait upon us laid the blame upon the waiter who ought not to 
wait upon us, and said it was all that waiter’s fault. 

8 


22G 


THE UXCOHHEllCIAL TRAVELER. 


“ We wish,” said Bullfinch, much depressed, “ to order a littlci 
dinner in an hour. What can we have?” 

” What would you like to have, gentlemen?” 

Bullfinch, with extreme mournfulness of speech and action, and 
with a forlorn old liy-blown bill of fare in his hand which the 
waiter had given him, and which was a sort of general manuscript 
index to any cookery book you please, moved the previous question. 

We could have mock-turtle soup, a sole, curry, and roast duck. 
Agreed. At this table, by this window. Punctually in an hour. 

1 had been feigning to look out of this window; but 1 had been, 
taking note of the crumbs on all the tables, the dirty table-cloths, 
tlie stufly, soupy, airless atmosphere, the stale leavings everywhere 
about, the deep gloom of the waiter who ought to wait upon us, and 
the stomach-ache with which a lonely traveler at a distant table in 
a corner was too evidently afflicted. I now pointed out to Bullfinch 
the alarming circumstance that this traveler had dined. We hur- 
riedly debated whether, without infringement of good breeding, we 
could ask him to disclose if he had partaken of mock turtle, sole, 
curry, or roast duck? We decided tliat the thing could not be 
politely done, and we had set our own stomachs on a cast, and they 
must stand the hazard of the die. 

1 hold phrenology, within certain limits, to be true; 1 am much 
of the same mind as to the subtler expressions of the hand; 1 hold 
physiognomy to be infallible, though all these sciences demand rare 
qualities in the student. But 1 also hold that there is no more cer- 
tain index to personal character than the condition of a set of 
casters is to the character of any hotel. Knowing, and having often 
tested this theory of mine. Bullfinch resigned himself to the worst, 
when, laying aside any remaining veil of disguise I held up before 
him in succession the cloudy oil and furry vinegar, the clogged cay 
enne, the dirty salt, the obscene dregs ot soy, and the anchovy sauce 
in a flannel waistcoat of decomposition. 

We went out to transact our business. So inspiriting was the re- 
lief of passing into the clean and windy streets of Namelesstgn 
from the heavy and vapid closeness of the coffee-room of the Tem- 
eraire, that hope began to revive within us. We began to consider 
that perhaps the lonely traveler had taken phj’^sic, or done some- 
thing injudicious to bring his complaint on. Bullfinch remarked 
that he thought the waiter who ought to wait upon us had bright- 
ened a little when suggesting curry; and, although I knew him to 
have been at that moment the express image of despair, I allowed 
myself to become elevated in spirits. As we walked by the softly- 
lapping sea, all the notabilities of Namelesston, who are forever 
going up and down with the changelessness of the tides, passed to 
and fro in procession. Pretty girls on horseback, and with detested 
riding masters; pretty girls on foot; mature ladies in hats — spec- 
tacled, strong-minded, and glaring at the opposite or weaker sex. 
The Scotch Exchange was strongly represented, Jerusalem was 
strongly represented, the bores of the prosier London clubs was 
strongly represented. Fortune-hunters of all denominations were 
there, from hirsute insolvency in a curricle, to closely buttoned 
swindlery in doubtful boots, on the sharp lookout for any likely 
young gentleman disposed to play a game at billiards round the 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAA'ELER. 


227 


< 50 Tner. Masters of languages, their lessons finished for the day, 
were going to their homes out of sight of the sea; mistresses of ac- 
complishments, carrying small portfolios, likewise tripped home- 
ward; pairs ot scholastic pupils, two and two, went languidly 
along the beach, surveying the face of the waters as if waiting for 
some Ark to come and take them off. Specters of I he Gieorge the 
Fourth days flitted unsteadily among the crowd, bearing the out- 
ward semblance of ancient dandies, of every one ot whom it might 
be said, not that he had one leg in the grave, or both legs, but that 
he was steeped in grave to the summit of his high shirt collar, and 
had nothing real about him but his bones. Alone stationary in the 
midst of all the movements, the Namelesston boatmen leaned against 
the railings and yawned, and looked out to sea, or looked at the 
moored fishing-boats and at nothing. Such is the unchanging man- 
ner of life with this nursery of our hardy seamen; and very dry 
nurses they are, and always wanting sometliing to drink. The only 
two nautical personages detached from the railing were the two 
fortunate possessors of the celebrated monstrous unknown barking 
fish, just caught (frequently just caught ofl; Namelesston, who car- 
ried him about in a hamper, and pressed the scientific to look in at 
the lid. 

The sands of the hour had all run out when we got back to the 
Temeiaire. Says Bullfinch, then, to the youth in livery, with bold- 
ness, “Lavatory!” 

When we arrived at the family vault with a sky-light, which the 
youth in livery presented as the institution sought, we had already 
whisked off our cravats and coats; but, finding ourselves in the 
presence of an evil smell, and no linen but two crumpled towels 
newly damp from the countenances of two somebody elses, we put on 
our cravats and c ^ats again, and fled unwashed to the coffee-room. 

There the waiter who ought to wait upon us had set forth our 
knives and forks and glasses, on the cloth whose dirty acquaintance 
we had already had the pleasure of making, and which we were 
pleased to recognize by the familiar expression of its stains. And 
now there occurred the truly surprising phenomenon, that the waiter 
who ought not to wait upon us, swooped down upon us, clutched 
our loaf of bread, and vanished with the same. 

Bullfinch, with distracted eyes, was following this unaccountable 
\gure “ out at the portal,” like the ghost in “ Hamlet,” when the 
vuiter who ought to wait upon us jostled against it, carrying a 
tureen. 

“ Waiter!” said a severe, diner, lately finished, perusing his bill 
fiercely through his eye-glass. 

The waiter put down our tureen on a remote side-table, and went 
lo see what was amiss in this new direction. 

“ This is not right, you know, waiter. Look here! Here’s yes- 
terday’s sherry, one-and-eightpence, and here we are again two shil- 
Jings. And what does sixpence mean?” 

So far from knowing what sixpence meant, the waiter protested 
that he didn’t know what anything meant. He wiped the perspira- 
tion from his clammy brow, and said it was impossible to do it— not 
particularizing what — and the kitchen was so far off. 


228 


THE UNCOMMEllCIAL THAVELEK. 


“ Take the bill to the bar and get it altered,” said Mr. Indigna- 
tion Cocker, so to call liim. 

The waiter took it, looked intensel}’’ at it, didn’t seem to like the 
idea of taking it to the bar, and submitted as a new light upon the 
case, that perhaps sixpence meant sixpence. 

” 1 tell you again,” said Mr. Indignation Cocker, ” here’s yester- 
day’s sherry — can’t you see it?— one-and-eightpence, and here we- 
are again two shillings. What do you make of one-and-eightpence 
and two shillings?” 

Totally unable to make anything of one-and-eightpence and two 
shillings, the waiter went out to try if anybody else could; merely 
casting a helpless backward glance at Bullfinch, in acknowledg- 
ment of his pathetic entreaties for our soup-tureen. After a pause, 
during which Mr. Indignation Cocker read a newspaper and 
coughed defiant coughs. Bullfinch arose to get the tureen, when the 
waiter reappeared and brought it — dropping Mr. Indignation 
Cocker’s altered bill on Mr. Indignation Cocker's table as he came 
along. 

” It’s quite impossible to do it, gentlemen,” murmured the waiter; 
” and the kitchen is so far off.” 

” Well, you don’t keep the house; it’s not your fault, we sup- 
pose. Bring some sherry.” 

” Waiter!” from Mr. Indignation Cocker, with a new and burn- 
ing sense of injury upon him. 

The waiter, arrested on his way to our sherry, stopped short, and 
came back to see what was wrong now. 

“ Will you look here! This is worse than before. Do you under- 
stand? Here’s yesterday’s sherry, one-and-eightpence, and here 
we are again two shUlings. And what the devil does ninepence 
mean?” 

This new portent utterly confounded the waiter. He wrung his 
napkin, and mutely appealed to the ceiling. 

” Waiter, fetch that sherry,” says Bullfinch in open wrath and 
revolt. 

“I want to know,” persisted Mr. Indignation Cocker, “the 
meaning of ninepence. I want to know the meaning ot sherry one 
and-eightpence yesterday, and of here we are again two shillings. 
Send somebody.” 

The distracted waiter got out of the room on pretext of sending 
somebody, and by that means got our wine. But, the instant he 
appeared with our decanter Mr. Indignation Cocker descended on 
him again. 

” Waiter!” 

‘‘You will now have the goodness to attend to our dinner, waiter,”' 
said Bullfinch, sternly. 

“lam very sorry, but it’s quite impossible to do it, gentlemen,” 
pleaded the waiter; “ and the kitchen ” 

‘‘ Waiter!” said Mr. Indignation Cocker. 

” —Is,” resumed the waiter, ” so far off, that ” 

” Waiter!” persisted Mr. Indignation Cocker, “ send somebody.” 

We were not without our fears that the waiter rushed out to hang 
himself, and we were much relieved by his fetching somebody— in- 


THE IJKCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 229 

graceful flowing skirts and with a waist— who very soon settled Mr. 
Indignation Cocker's business. 

“Oh!” said Mr Cocker, with his fire surprisingly quenched by 
this apparition; “ I wished to ask about this bill of mine, because 
it appears to me that there’s a little mistake here. Let me show you. 
Here’s yesterday’s sherry one-an<i-eightpence, and here we are again 
two shillings. And how do you explain ninepence?” 

However, it was explained, in tones too soft to be overheard. Mr. 
Cocker was heard to say nothing more than: “Ah-h-h! Indeed; 
thank you! Yes,” and shortly afterward went out, a milder man. 

The lonely traveler with the stomach-ache had all this time 
suffered severely, drawing up a leg now and then, and sipping hot 
brandy-and- water with grated ginger in it. 'When we tasted our 
(very) mock-turtle soup, and were instantly seized with symptoms 
of some disorder simulating apoplexy, and occasioned by the sur- 
charge of nose and brain with lukewarm dish-water, hold- 
ing in solution sour flour, poisonous condiments, and (say) sev- 
enty-five per cent, of miscellaneous kitchen-stuff rolled into 
balls, we were inclined to trace his disorder to that source. On the 
other hand, there was a silent anguish upon him too strongly re- 
sembling the results established within ourselves by the sherry, to 
be discarded from alarmed consideration. Again, we observed him,, 
with terror, to be much overcome by our sole’s being aired in a 
temporary retreat close to him, while the waiter went out (as we 
conceived) to see his friends. And, when the curry made its ap- 
pearance, he suddenly retired in great disorder. 

In fine, for the uneatable part of this little dinner (as contradis- 
tinguished from the undrinkable) we paid only seven sliillings and 
sixpence each. And Bullfinch and I agreed unanimously that no 
such ill-served, ill-appointed, ill-cooked, nasty little dinner could 
be got for the money anywhere else under the sun. With that com- 
fort to our backs, we turned them on the dear old Temeraire, the 
charging Temeraire, and resolved (in the Scotch dialect) to gang 
nae mair to the flabby Temeraire. 


XXXIll. 

MR. BARLOW. 

A GREAT reader of good fiction at an unusually early age, it seems 
to me as though I had been born under the superintendence of the 
estimable but terrific gentleman whose name stands at the head of 
my present reflections. The, instructive monomaniac, Mr. Barlow, 
will be remembered as the tutor of Master Harry Sandford and 
IMaster Tommy Merton. He knew everything, and didactically im- 
proved all sorts of occasions, from the consumption of a plate of 
cherries to the contemplation of a starlight night. What youth 
came to without Mr. Barlow was displayed in the history of Sand- 
ford and Merton, by the example of a certain awful Master Mash. 
This young wretch wore buckles and powder, conducted himself 
with insupportable levity at the theater, had no idea of facing a mad 
bull single-handed (in which 1 think him less reprehensible, as re- 
motely reflecting my own character), and was a frightful instance 
of the enervating effects of luxury upon the human race. 


^30 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


Strange destiny on the part of Mr. Barlow, to go clown to posterity 
as childhood’s experience of a bore! Immortal Mr. Barlow, boring 
his way through the verdant freshness of ages! 

My personal indictment against Mr. Barlow is one of many counts. 
J will proceed to set forth a few of the injuries he has done me. 

In the first place, he never made or took a joke. This insensibil- 
ity on Mr. Barlow’s part not only cast its own gloom over my boy- 
hood, but blighted even the sixpenny jest books of the time; for 
groaning under a moral spell constraining me to refer all things to 
Mr. Barlow, I could not choose but ask myself in a whisper, when 
tickled by a printed jest, “ What would lie think of it? What 
would lie see in it?” The point of the jest immediately became a 
sting, and stung my conscience. For my mind’s eye saw him stolid, 
frigid, perchance taking from its shelf some dreary Greek book, and 
translating at full length what some dismal sage said (and touched 
up afterward, perhaps, for publication), when he banished some 
unlucky joker from Athens. 

The incompatibility of Mr. Barlow with all other portions of my 
young life but himself, the adamantine inadaptability of the man to 
my favorite fancies and amusements, is the thing for which I hate 
him most. Vf'hat right had he to bore his way into my ” Arabian 
Mights”? Yet he did. He was always hinting doubts of the ve- 
racity of Sindbad the Sailor. If he could have got hold of the Won- 
derful Lamp, I knew he would have trimmed it and lighted it, and 
delivered a lecture over it on the qualities of sperm oil, with a glance 
at the whale fisheries. He would so soon have found out— on me- 
chanical principles — the peg in the neck of the Enchanted Horse, 
and would have turned it the right way in so workmanlike a man- 
ner, that the horse could never have got any height into the air, and 
the story couldn’t have been. He would have proved, by map and 
'Compass, that there was no such kingdom as the delightful king- 
dom of (jasgar, on the frontiers of Tartary. He would have caused 
that hypocritical young prig Harry to make an experiment — with 
the aid of a temporary building in the garden and a dummy — dem- 
onstrating that you couldn’t let a clioked hunchback down an 
Eastern chimney with a cord, and leave him upright on the hearth 
to terrify the sultan’s purveyor. 

The golden sounds of the overture to the first metropolitan panto- 
mine, 1 remember, were allowed by Mr. Barlow. Click click, ting 
ling, bang bang, weedle weedle weedle, bang! I recall the chilling 
air that ran across my frame and cooled my hot delight as the 
thought occurred to me. ” This would never do for Mr. Barlow!” 
After the curtain drew' up, dreadful doubts of Mr. Barlow’s consid- 
ering the costumes of the Nymphs of the Nebula as being sufiiciently 
vopaque obtruded themselves on my enjoyment. In the clown 1 
perceived two persons: one a fascinating unaccountable creature of 
a hectic complexion, joyous in spirits, though feeble in intellect, 
with flashes of brilliancy; the other a pupil for Mr. Barlow. 1 
thought now Mr. Barlow would secretly rise early in the morning, 
and butter the pavement lox him, and, when he had brought him 
<lowu, would look severely out of his study window, and ask him 
liow he fenjoyed the fun. 

1 thought how Mr. Barlow would heat all the pokers in the house. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 231 

and sin^ce him with the whofe collection, to bring him better ac^ 
quainted with the properties of incandescent iron, on which he 
(Barlow) would fully expatiate. I pictured Mr. Barlow’s institut- 
ing a comparison between the clown’s conduct at his studies— drink- 
ing up the ink, licking his coP5'’-book, and using his head for blot- 
ting- papp-— and that of the already mentioned young prig of prigs, 
Harry, sitting at the Barlovian feet, sneakingly pretending to be in 
a rapture of youthful knowledge. 1 thought how soon Mr, Barlow 
would smooth the clown’s hair down, instead of letting it stand 
erect in three tall tufts; and how, after a couple of years or so witli 
Mr. Barlow, he would keep his legs close together when he walked, 
and would take his hands out of his big loose pockets, and wouldn’t, 
have a jump left in him. 

That I am particularly ignorant what most things in the universe 
are made of, and how they are made, is another of ^ny charges 
against Mr. Barlow. With the dread upon me of developing into a 
Harry, and with a further dread upon me of being Barlowed if 1 
made inquiries, by bringing down upon myself a cold shower-bath 
of explanations and experiments, 1 forebore enlightenment in my 
youth, and became, as they say in melodramas, “ the wreck you 
now behold.” That I consorted with idlers and dunces is another 
of the melancholy facts for which I hold Mr. Barlow responsible- 
That pragmatical prig, Harry, became so detestable in my sight, 
that, he being reported studious in the South, 1 would have fled idle 
to the extremest North. Better to learn misconduct from a Master 
Mash, than science and statistics from a Sandford! So I took the 
path which, but for Mr. Barlow, I might never have trodden. 
Thought I, with a shudder, ” Mr. i3arlow is a bore with an immense 
constructiye power of making bores. Ilis prize specimen is a bore. 
He seeks to make a bore of me. That knowledge is power, 1 am not 
prepared to gainsay; but, with Mr. Barlow, knowledge is power to 
bore.” Therefore I took refuge in the caves of ignorance, whereia 
I have resided ever since, and which are still my private address. 

But the weightest charge of all my charges against Mr. Barlow is, 
that he still walks the earth in various disguises, seeking to make a 
Tommy of me, even in my maturity. Irrepressible, instructive, 
monomaniac, Mr. Barlow fills my life with pitfalls, and lies hiding 
in the bottom to burst out upon me when I least expect him. 

A few of these dismal experiences of mine shall suffice. 

Knowing Mr. Barlow to have invested largely in the moving-pan- 
orama trade, and having on various occasions identified him in the 
dark with a long wand in his hand, holding forth in his old way 
(made more appalling in this connection by his sometimes cracking 
a piece of Mr. Carlyle’s own Dead-Sea fruit in mistake for a joke), 1 
systematically shun pictorial entertainment on rollers. Similarly, 
I should demand responsible bail and guaranty against the appear- 
ance of Mr. Barlow, before committing myself to attendance at any 
assemblage of my fellow-creatures where a bottle of water and a 
note book were conspicuous objects; for, in either of those associa- 
tions, I should expressly expect him. But such is the designing 
nature of the man, that he steals in where no reasoning precauliont 
or prevision could expect him. As in the following case; 

Adjoining the Caves of Ignorance is a country town. In this 


^32 


THE UHCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 


country town the Mississiopi Moraus«s, nine in number, were an- 
nounced to aupear in the Town-hall for the general delectation, thia 
last Chriatmas-week. Knowing Mr. Barlow to be unconnected with 
the Mississippi, though holding republican opinions, and deeming 
myself secure. 1 took a stall. My object was to hear and see the 
Mississippi Momuses in what the bills described as their “ National 
ballads, plantation break-downs, nigger part songs, choice conun- 
drums, sparkling repartees, &c. ” I found the nine dressed alike, 
in the black coat and trousers, white waistcoat, very large shirt- 
front, very large shirt collar, and very large white tie and wrist- 
bands, which constitute the dress of the mass of the African race, 
and which has been observed by travelers to prevail over a vast 
number of degrees of latitude. All the nine rolled their ej^es ex- 
ceedingly, and had very red lips. At the extremities of the curve 
they formed, seated in their chairs, were die performers on the 
tambourine and bones. The center Mom us, a black of melancholy 
aspect (who inspired me with a vague uneasiness for which 1 could 
not then account), performed on a Mississippi instrument closely 
resembling what was once called in this island a hurdy-gurdy. The 
Momuses on either side of him had each another instrument peculiar 
to the Father of Waters, which may be likened to a stringed weather- 
glass held upside down. There were likewise a little flute and a 
violin. All went well for awhile, and we had had several spark- 
ling repartees exchanged between the performers on the tambourine 
and bones, when the black of melancholy aspect, turning to the 
latter, and addressing him in a deep and imposing voice as 
“ Bones, sir,” delivered certain grave remarks to him concerning the 
Juveniles present, and the season of the year; whereon I perceived 
that I was in the presence of Mr. Barlow, corked 1 

Another night— -and this was in London —1 attended the represen- 
tation of a little comedy. As the characters were lifelike (and con- 
sequently not improving), and as they went upon their several ways 
and designs without personally addressing themselves to me, I felt 
rather confident of coming through it without being regarded as 
Tommy, the more so as we were clearly getting close to the end. 
But 1 deceived myself. All of a sudden, and apropos of nothing, 
everybody concerned came to a check and halt, advanced to the foot- 
lights in a general rally to take dead aim at me, and brought me 
down with a moral homily, in which 1 detected the dread hand of 
Barlow. 

Nay, so intricate and subtle are the toils of this hunter, that, on 
the very next night after that, 1 was again entrapped, where no 
vestige of a springe could have been apprehended by the timidest. 
It was a burlesque that I saw performed; an uncompromising bur- 
lesque, where everybody concerned, but especially the ladies, carried 
on at a very considerable rate indeed. Most prominent and active 
among the corps of performers was what 1 took to be (and she really 
gave me very fair opportunities of coming to a right conclusion; a 
young lady of a pretty figure. She was dressed as a picturesque 
young gentleman, whose pantaloons had been cut off in their in- 
fancy; and she had very neat knees and very neat satin boots, im- 
mediately after singing a slang song and dancing a slang dance, this 
engaging figure approached the fatal lamps, and bending over them. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


235 

delivered in a thrillinjj: voice a random eulogium on, and exhorta- 
tion to pursue, the virtues. “ Great Heaven!" was my exclamation; 
" Barlow!" 

_ There is stil] another aspect in which Mr. Barlow perpetually in- 
sists on my sustaining the character of Tommy, which is more un- 
endurable yet, on account of its extreme aggressiveness. For the 
purposes of a review or newspaper, he will get up an abtruse sub- 
ject with infinite pains, will Barlow, utterly regardless of the price 
of midnight oil, and, indeed, of everything else, save cramming 
himself to the eyes. 

But mark. When Mr. Barlow blows his information off, be is not 
contented with having rammed it home, and discharged it upon me. 
Tommy, his target, but he pretends that he was always in posses- 
sion of it, and made nothing of it — that he imbibed it with mother's 
milk — and that I, the wretched Tommy, am inost abjectly behind- 
hand in not having done the same. I ask, Why is Tommy to be 
always the foil of Mr. Barlow to this extent? What Mr. Barlow 
had not the slightest notion of himself a week ago, it surely cannot 
be any very heavy backsliding in me not to have at my fingers’ ends 
to-day! And yet Mr. Barlow systematically carries it over me with 
a high hand, and will tauntingly ask me, "in his articles, whether it 
is possible that lam not aware that every school-boy knows that 
the fourteenth turning on the left in the steppes of Russia will con- 
duct to such and such a wandering tribe? with other disparaging 
questions of like nature. So, when Mr. Barlow addresses a letter 
to any journal as a volunteer correspondent (which 1 frequently find 
him doing), he will previously have gotten somebody to tell him 
some tremendous technicality, and will write in the coolest manner, 
" Now, sir, I may assume that every reader of your columns, pos- 
sessing average information and intelligence, knows as well as I do 
that" — say that the draught from the touch-hole of a cannon of 
such a caliber bears such a proportion in the nicest fractions to the 
draught from the muzzle; or some equally familiar little fact. But, 
whatever it is, be certain that it always tends to the exaltation of 
Mr. Barlow, and the depression of his enforced and enslaved pupil. 

Mr. Barlow’s knowledge of my own T3ur8uit8 I find to be so pro- 
found, that my own knowledge of them becomes as nothing. 
Barlow (disguised and bearing a feigned name, but detected by me), 
has occasionally taught me, in a sonorous voice, from end to end of 
a long dinner-table, trifles that i took the liberty of teaching him 
five-and-twenty years ago. My closing article of impeachment 
against Mr. Barlow is, that he goes out to breakfast, goes out to din- 
ner, goes out everywhere, high and low, and that he will, preach to 
me, and that 1 can’t get rid of him. He makes of me a Prome- 
thean Tommy, bound; and he is the vulture that gorges itself upon 
the liver of my un instructed mind. 


XXXIV. 

ON AN AMATEUR BEAT. 

It is one of my fancies, that even my idlest walk must always 
have its appointed destination. I set myself a task before I leave 
my lodging in Covent Garden on a street expedition, and should no 


^34 


THE rKCOMMEliCTAL TRAVELER. 


more think of altering ray route by the way, or turning back and 
leaving a part of it unachieved, than 1 should think of fraudulently 
T/iolating an agreement entered into with somebody else. The other 
day, finding myself under this kind of obligation to proceed to 
iiimehouse, 1 started punctually at noon, in compliance with the 
terms of the contract with myself to which my good faith was 
pledged. 

On such an occasion it is my habit to regard my walk as my beat, 
and myself as a higher sort of police-constable doing duty on the 
^ame. There is many a rufiian in the streets whom 1 mentally col- 
lar and clear out of them, who would see mighty little of London, 1 
can tell him, if I could deal with him physically. 

Issuing forth upon this very beat, and following with my eyes 
three hulking garroters on their way home — which home 1 could 
confidently swear to be within so many yards of Drury Lane, in 
such a narrow and restricted direction (though they live in their 
lodging quite as undisturbed as 1 in mine) — I went on duty with a 
consideration which 1 respectfully offer to the new Chief Commis- 
sioner— in whom 1 thoroughly confide as a tried and efficient public 
servant. How often (thought 1) have I been forced to swallow, in 
police reports, the intolerable stereotyped pill of nonsense, how that 
the police-constable informed the worthy magistrate, how that the 
associates of the prisoner did, at that present speaking, dwell in a 
-street or court which no man dared go down, and how that the 
worthy magistrate had heard of the dark reputation* of such street 
or court, and how that our readers would doubtless remember that 
it was always the same street or court which was thus edifyingly 
discoursed about, say, once a fortnight. 

Now, suppose that a Chief Commissioner sent round a circular to 
every division of police employed in London, requiring instantly 
the names in all districts of all such much-puffed streets or courts 
which no man durst go down ; and suppose that in such circular he 
gave plain wmrning, “ if those places really exist, they are a proof 
of police inefficiency which 1 mean to punish; and if they do not 
exist, but are a conventional fiction, then they are a proof of lazy 
tacit police connivance with professional crime, which 1 also mean 
to punish ” — what then? Fictions or realities, could they survive 
the touchstone of this atom of common sense? To tell ue in open- 
court, until it has become as trite a feature of news as a great goose- 
berry, that a costly police system, such as was never before heard 
of, has left in London, in the days of steam and gas and photo- 
graphs of thieves and electric telegraphs, the sanctuaries and stews 
of the Stuarts! Why, a parity of practice, in all departments, w'ould 
bring back the Plague in two summers, and the Druids in a cen- 
tury! 

Walking faster under my share of this public injury, 1 overturned 
a wretched little creature, who, clutching at the rags of a pair of 
trousers with one of its claws, and at its ragged hair with the other, 
pattered with bare feet over the muddy stones. 1 stopped to I’aise 
and succor this poor weeping wretch, and fifty like it, but of both 
.sexes, were about me in a moment, bagging, tumbling, fighting, 
<;lamoriDg, yelling, shivering in their nakedness and hunger. The 
piece of money 1 had pat into the claw of the child I had over- 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 235 

turned was clawed out of it, and was again clawed out of that 
wolfish gripe, and again out of that, and soon I had no notion in 
what part of the obscene scutfle in the mud, of rags and legs, and 
arms and dirt, the money might be. In raising the child, I had 
drawn it aside out of the main thoroughfare, and this took place 
among some wooden hoardings and barriers and ruins of demolished 
buildings hard by Temple Bar. 

Unexpectedly, from among them emerged a genuine police-con- 
stable, before whom the dreadful brood dispersed in various direc- 
tions, he making feints and darts in this direction and in that, and 
catching nothing. When all were frightened away he took off his 
hat, pulled out a handkerchief from it, wiped his heated brow, and 
restored the handkerchief and hat to their places, with the air of a 
man who had discharged a great moral duty — as indeed he had, in 
doing what was set down for him. 1 looked at him, and I looked 
about at the disorderly traces in the mud, and I thought of the 
drops of rain and the foot-prints of an extinct creature, hoary ages 
upon ages old, that geologists have identified on the face of a cliff; 
and this speculation came over me: If this mud could petrify at this 
moment, and could lie concealed here for ten thousand years, I won- 
der whether the race of men then to be our successors on the eartli 
could, from these or any marks, by the utmost force of the human 
intellect, unassisted by tradition, deduce such an astounding infer- 
ence as the existence of a polished state of society that bore with the 
public savagery of neglected children in the streets of its capital 
city, and was proud of its power by sea and land, and never used its 
power to seize and save them ! 

After this, when I came to the Old Bailey, and glanced up it 
toward Newgale, I found that the prison had an inconsistent look. 
There seemed to be some unlucky inconsistency in the atmosphere 
of that day; for, though the proportions of St. Paul’s Cathedral are 
very beautiful, it had an air of being somewhat out of drawing in 
my eyes. 1 felt as though the cross were too high up, and perched 
upon the intervening golden ball too far away 

Facing eastward, 1 left behind me Smithfield and Old Bailey — 
lire and faggot, condemned hold, public hanging, whipping through 
the city at the cart-tail, pillory, branding-iron, and other beautiful 
ancestral landmarks, which rude hands have rooted up, without 
bringing the stars quite down upon us as yet—and went my way- 
upon my beat, noting how oddly characteristic neighborhoods are; 
divided from one another hereabout, as though by an invisible line 
aeross the way. Here shall cease the bankers and the money- 
changers; here shall begin the shipping interest, and the nauticall 
instrument shops; here shall follow a scarcely perceptible flavoring 
of groceries and drugs; here shall come a strong infusion of butch- 
ers; now, small hosiers shall be in the ascendant; henceforth, every- 
thing exposed for sale shall have its ticketed price attached. All 
this as if specially ordered and appointed. 

A single stride at Houndsditch Church no wider than suflSced to 
cross the kennel at the bottom of the Canongate, which the debtors 
in Holyrood sanctuary were wont to relieve their minds by skip- 
ping over, as Scott relates, and standing in delightful daring of 
catchpoles on the free side— a single stride and everything is entirelyr 


^36 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER, 


changed in jirain anJ character. West of the stride, a table, or a 
chest of drawers on sale, shall be of mahogany and French-polished; 
east of the stride, it shall be of deal, smeared with a cheap counter- 
feit resembling lip-salve. West of .the stride, a penny loaf or bun 
shall be compact and self-contained; east of the stride, it shall be of 
a sprawling and splay-footed character, as seeking to make raoie of 
itself for the money. My beat lying round by Whitechapel Church, 
and the adjacent sugar refineries — great buildings, tier upon tier, 
that have the appearance of being nearly related to the dock ware- 
houses at Liverpool — I turned off to my right, and, passing round 
the awkward corner on my left, came suddenly on an apparition 
familiar to London streets afar off. 

What London peripatetic of these times has not seen the woman 
who has fallen forward, double, through some affection of the 
spine, and whose head has of late taken a turn to one side, so that 
it now droops over the back of one of her arms at about the wrist? 
Who does not know her staff, and her shawl, and her basket; as 
she gropes her way along, capable of seeing nothing but the pave- 
ment, never begging, never stopping, forever going somewhere on 
no business? How does she live, whence does she come, whither 
does she go, and why? 1 mind the time when her yellow arms were 
nought but bone and parchment. Slight changes steal over her; 
for there is a shadowy suggestion of human skin on them now. 
The Strand may be taken as the central point about which she re- 
volves in a half-mile orbit. How comes she so far east as this? 
And coming back, too! Having been much further? She is a rare 
spectacle in this neighborhood. 1 receive intelligent information to 
this effect from a dog — a lop-sided mongrel with a foolish tail, plod- 
ding along with his tail up, and his ears pricked, and displaying an 
amiable interest in the ways of his fellow-men — it 1 may be allowed 
the expression. Alter pausing at a pork shop, he is jogging east- 
ward like myself, with a benevolent countenance and a watery 
mouth, as though musing on the many excellences of pork, when 
he beholds this doubled-up bundle approaching. He is not so much 
astonished at the bundle (though amazed by that), as the circum- 
stance that it has within itself the means of locomotion. He stops, 
pricks his ears higher, makes a slight point, stares, utters a short 
low growl, and glistens at the nose — as I conceive, wdtli terror. 
The bundle continuing to approach, he backs, turns tail, and is 
about to fly, when, arguing with himself that flight is not becoming 
in a dog, he turns, and once more faces the advancing heap of 
clothes. After much hesitation it occurs to him that there may be 
a face in it somewhere. Desperately resolving to undertake the ad- 
venture, and pursue the inquiry, he goes slowly up to the bundle, 
goes slowly round it, and, coming at length upon the human coun- 
tenance down there where never human countenance should be, he 
gives a yelp of horror, and flies for the East India Docks. 

Being how in the Commercial-Road district of my beat, and be- 
thinking myself that Stepney station is near, 1 quicken my pace 
that I may turn out of the road at that point, and see how my small 
eastern star is shining. 

The Children’s Hospital, to which 1 gave that name, is in full 
force. All its beds are occupied. There is a new face on the bed 


THE UHCOMMEECIAL TRAVELER. 


237 

where my pretty baby lay, and that sweet little child is now at rest 
forever. Much kind sympathy has been here since my former visit, 
and it is good to see the w’alls profusely garnished with dolls. I 
wonder what Poodles may think of them, as they stretch out their 
arms above the beds, and stare, and display their splendid dresses. 
Poodles has a greater interest in the patients, 1 find him making 
the round of the beds, like a house surgeon, attended by another 
dog— a friend — who appears to trot about with him in the character 
of his pupil dresser. Poodles is anxious to make me known to a 
pretty little girl looking wonderfully healthy, who had had a leg 
taken off for cancer of the knee. A difficult operation. Poodles 
intimates, wagging his tail on the counterpane, but perfectly suc- 
cessful, as you see, dear sir! The patient, patting Poodles, adds 
with a smile, “ The leg was so much trouble to me, that I am glad 
it’s gone.” 1 never saw anything in doggery finer than the deport- 
ment of Poodles, when another little girl opens her mouth to show 
a peculiar enlargement of the tongae. Poodles (at that time on a 
table, to be on a level with the occasion) looks at the tongue (with 
his own symi athetically out) so very gravely and knowingly, that I 
feel inclined to put my hand in my waistcoat pocket, and give him 
a guinea, wrapped in paper. 

On my beat again, and close to Limehouse Church, its termina- 
tion, 1 found myself near to certain ” Lead Mills.” Struck by the 
name, which was fresh in my memory, and finding, on inquiry, that 
these same lead-mills were identified with those same lead-mills of 
which I made mention when 1 first visited the East London Chil- 
dren’s Hospital and its neighborhood as Uncommercial Traveler, 1 
resolved to have a look at tliein. 

Received by two very intelligent gentlemen, brothers, and part- 
ners with their father in the concern, and who testified every desire 
to show their works to me freely, I went over the lead-mills. The 
purport of such works is the conversion of pig-lead into white- lead. 
This conversion is brought about by the slow and gradual effecting 
of certain successive chemical changes in the lead itself. The pro- 
cesses are picturesque and interesting— the most so being the bury- 
ing of the lead, at a certarn stage of preparation, in pots, each pot 
containing a certain quantity of acid besides, and all the pots being 
buried in vast numbers, in layers, under tan, for some ten weeks. 

flopping up ladders, and across planks, and on elevated perches, 
until I was uncertain whether to liken myself to a bird or a brick- 
layer, I became conscious of standing on nothing particular, looking 
down into one of a series of large cock-lofts, with the outer day 
peeping in through the chinks in the tiled roof above. A number 
of women were ascending to, and descending from, this cock-loft, 
each carrying on the upward journey a pot of prepared lead and 
acid, for deposition under the smoking tan. When one layer of 
pots was completely filled, it was carefully covered in with planks, 
and those were carefully covered with tan again, and then another 
layer of pots was begun above;’ sufficient means of ventilation being 
preserved through wooden tubes. Going down into the cock-loft 
then filling, 1 found the heat of the tan to be surprisingly great, and 
also the odor of the lead and acid to be not absolutely exquisite, 
though 1 believe not noxious at that stage. In other cock-lofts. 


238 


THE UKCOMMEllCIAL TliAVELER. 


where the pots were being exhumed, the heat of the steaming tan wae 
much greater, and the smell was penetrating and peculiar. There 
were cock-lofts in all stages; full and empty, half tilled and half emp 
tied; strong, active women were clambering about them busily; and 
the whole thing had rather the air of the upper part of the house of 
some immensely rich old Turk, whose faithful seraglio was hiding 
his money because the sultan or the pasha was coming. 

As is the case with most pulps or pigments, so in the instance of 
this white-lead, processes of stirring, separating, washing, grinding, 
rolling, and pressing succeed. Some of these are unquestionably 
inimical to health, the danger arising from inhalation of particles of 
lead, or from contact between the lead and the touch, or both. 
Against these dangers I found good respirators provided (simply 
made of flannel and muslin, so as to be inexpensively renewed, and 
in some instances washed with scented soap), and gauntlet gloves, 
and loose gownsi Everywhere there was as much fresh air as win- 
dows, well placed and opened, could possibly admit. And it was ex- 
plained that the precaution of frequently changing the women em- 
ployed in the worst parts of the work (a precaution originating in 
their own experience or apprehension of its ill effects) was found 
salutary. They had a mysterious and singular appearance, with the 
mouth and nose covered, and the loose gown on, and yet bore out 
the simile of the old Turk and the seraglio all the better for the dis- 
guise. 

At last this vexed white-lead, having been buried and resuscitated, 
and heated and cooled and stirred, and separated and washed and 
ground, and rolled and pressed, is subjected to the action of intense 
fiery heat. A row of women, dressed as above described, stood, let 
us say, in a large stone bake-house, passing on the baking-dishes as 
they were given out by the cooks, from hand to hand, into the 
ovens. The oven, or stove, cold as yet, looked as high as an 
ordinary house, and was full of men and women on temporary foot- 
holds, briskly passing up and stowing away the dishes. The door 
of another oven, or stove, about to be cooled and emptied, was 
opened from above, for the uncommercial countenance to peer down 
into. The uncommercial countenance withdrew itself with ex- 
pedition and a sense of cuffocation from the dull-glowing heat and 
the overpowering smell. On the whole, perhaps the goinjr into these 
stoves to work, when they are freshly opened, may be the worst part 
of the occupation. 

But I made it out to be indubitable that the owners of these lead- 
mills honestly and sedulously try to reduce the dangers of the occu- 
pation to the lowest point. 

A washing-place is provided for the women (I thought there might 
have been more towels), and a room in which they hang their 
clothes, and take their meals, and where they have a good fire-range 
and fire, and a female attendant to help them, and to watch that 
they do not neglect the cleansing of their hands before touching their 
food. An experienced medical attendant is provided for them, and 
any premonitory symptoms of lead-poisoning are carefully treated. 
Their teapots and such things were set out on tables, ready for their 
afternoon meal, when I saw their room; and it had a homely look. 
It is found that they bear the work much better than men; some 


THE U>TCO:iI.MEUClAL TKAVELER. 


239 


tew of them have been at it tor years, and the great majority of 
those 1 observed were strong and active On the other hand, it 
should be remembered that most of them are very capricious and 
irregular in their attendance. 

American inventiveness would seem to indicate that before very 
long white-lead may be made entirely by machinery. The sooner 
the better. In the meantime. 1 parted from my two frank conduct- 
ors over the mills, by telling them that they had nothing there to 
be concealed, and nothing to be blamed for. As to the rest, the 
philosophy of the matter of lead-poisoning and work-people seems 
to me to have been pretty fairly summed up by the Irishwoman 
whom 1 quoted in my former paper: “ Some of them gets lead-pisoned 
soon, and some of them gets lead-pisoned later, and some, but not 
many, niver; and ’tis all according to the constitooshun, sur; and 
some constitooshuns is strong, and some is weak.” 

Retracing my footsteps over my beat, 1 went off duty. 


XXXV. 

A PLEA FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 

One day this last Whitsuntide, at precisely eleven o’clock in the 
iorenoon, there suddenly rode into the held of view commanded by 
the windows of my lodging an equestrian phenomenon. It was a 
fellow-creature on horseback, dressed in the absurdest manner. 
The fellow- creature wore high boots; some other (and much larger) 
fellow-creature’s breeches, of a slack-baked doughy color and a 
baggy form; a blue shirt, whereof the skirt, or tail, was puffily 
tucked into the waist-band of the said breeches; no coat; a red shoul- 
der-belt; and a demi-semi-military scarlet hat, with a feathered 
ornament in front, which, to the uninslructed human vision, had 
the appearance of a moulting shuttlecock. 1 laid down the news- 
paper with which 1 had been occupied, and surveyed the fellow- 
man in question with astonishment. Whether he had been sitting 
to any painter as a frontispiece for a new edition of “ Sartor 
Resartus;” whether “ the husk or shell of him,” as the esteemed 
Herr Teufelsdroch might put it, were founded on a jockey, on a 
circus, on General Garibaldi, on cheap porcelain, on a toy-sliop, on 
Guy Fawkes, on wax-work, on gold-digging, on Bedlam, or on all 
— were doubts that greatly exercised my mind. Meanwhile, my 
fellow-man stumbled and slided, excessively against his will, on the 
slippery stones of my Covent-Garden street, and elicited shrieks 
from several sympathetic females, by convulsively restraining him- 
self from pitching over his horse’s head. In the very crisis of these 
evolutions, and, indeed, at the trying moment when his charger’s 
tail was in a tobacconist’s shop, and his head anywhere about town, 
this cavalier was joined by two similar portents, who likewise 
stumbling and sliding, caused him to stumble and slide the more 
distressingly. At length this Gilpinian triumvirate effected a halt, 
and, looking northward, waved their three right hands as command- 
ing unseen troops to “ IJp, guards! and at ’em.” Hereupon a brazen 
band burst forth, which caused them to be instantly bolted with 
to some remote spot of earth in the direction of the Surrey Hills. 


240 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER, 


Judging from these appearances that a procession was under war, 
1 threw up my window, and, craning out. had the satisfaction of 
beholding it advancing along the streets. It was a Teetotal proces- 
sion, as 1 learnt from its banners, and was long enough to consume 
twenty minutes in passing. There were a great number of children 
in it, some of them so very young in their mother’s arms as to be in 
the act of practically exemplifying their abstinence from fermented 
liquors, and attachment to an unintoxicaling drink, while the pro- 
cession defiled. The display was, on the whole, pleasant to see, as 
any good-humored holiday assemblage of clean, cheerful, and well- 
f’onducted people should be. It was bright with ribbons, tinsel, 
and shoulder-belts, and abounded in flowers, as if those latter 
trophies had come up in profusion under much watering. The day 
being breezy, the insubordination of the large banners was very rep- 
rehensible. Each of these being borne aloft on two poles, and 
stayed with some half-dosen lines, was carried, as polite books in 
the last century used to be written, by “various hands,” and the 
anxiety expressed in the upturned faces of those officers— something 
between the anxiety attendant on the balancing art, and that io- 
separable from the pastime of kite-flying, with a touch of the 
angler’s quality in landing his scaly prey— much impressed me. 
Suddenly, too, a banner would shiver in the wind, and go about in 
the most inconvenient manner. This always happened oftenest 
with such gorgeous standards as those representing a gentleman in 
black, corpulent with tea and water, in the laudable act of summa- 
rily reforming a family, feeble and pinched with beer. The gentle- 
man in black distended by wind would then conduct himself with 
the most unbecomins levity, while the beery family, growing 
beerier, would frantically try to tear themselves away from his min- 
istration. Some of the inscriptions accompanying the banners were 
of a highly determined character, as, “ We never, never will give 
\ip the temperance cause,” with similar sound resolutions rather 
suggestive to the profane mind of Mrs. Micawber’s “ I never will 
desert Mr. Micawber,” and of Mr. Micawber’s retort, “ Really, my 
dear, I am not aware that you were ever required by any human 
being to do anything of the sort.” 

At intervals a gloom would fall on the passing members of the 
procession, for which I was at first unable to account. But this I 
discovered, after a little observation, to be occasioned by the coming 
on of the executioners— the terrible official beings who were to make 
the speeches by and by— who were distributed in open carnages at 
various points of the cavalcade. A dark cloud and a sensation of 
dampness, as from many wet blankets, invariably preceded the roll- 
ing on of the dreadful cars containing these headsmen ; and I noticed 
that the wretched people who closely followed them, and who w'ere 
in a manner forced to contemplate their folded arms, complacent 
countenances, and threatening lips, were more overshadowed by the 
cloud and damp than those in front. Indeed, I perceived in some 
of these so moody an implacability toward the magnates of the 
scaffold, and so plain a desire to tear them limb from limb, that I 
would respectfully suggest to the managers the expediency of con- 
veying the executioners to the scene of their dismal labors by unfre- 
quented ways, and in closely-lilted carts, next Whitsuntide. 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


241 

The procession was composed of a series of smaller processions, 
which had come together, each from its own metropolitan district. 
An infusion of allegory became perceptible when patriotic Peck- 
ham advanced. So 1 judged from the circumstance of Peckham’s 
unfurling a silken banner that fanned heaven and earth with the 
words, “ The Peckham Life-boat.” No boat being in attendance, 
though life, in the likeness of ” a gallant crew,” in nautical uniform, 
followed the flag, I was led to meditate on the fact that Peckham is 
described by geographers as an inland settlement, with no larger or 
nearer shore-line than the towing-path of the Surrey Canal, on 
which stormy station 1 had been given to understand no life- boat 
exists. Thus I deduced an allegorical meaning, and came to the 
conclusion, that if patriotic Peckham picked a peck of pickled 
poetry, this was the peck of pickled poetry which patriotic Peckham 
picked. 

I have observed that the aggregate procession was, on the whole, 
pleasant to see. I made use of that qualified expression with a 
direct meaning, which 1 will now explain, ft involves the title of 
this paper, and a little fair trying of teetotalism by its own tests. 
There were many people on foot, and many people in vehicles of 
various kinds. The former were pleasant to see, and the latter were 
not pleasant to see; for the reason that 1 never, on any occasion or 
under any circumstances, have beheld heavier overloading of horses 
than in this public show. Unless the imposition of a great van 
laden with from ten to twenty people on a single horse be a moder- 
ate tasking of the poor creature, then the temperate use of horses 
was immoderate and cruel. From the smallest and lightest horse 
to the largest and heaviest, there were many instances in which the 
beast of burden was so shamefully overladen, that the Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have frequently interposed in 
less gross cases. 

Now, I have always held that there may be, and that there un- 
questionably is, such a thing as use without abuse, and that there- 
fore the total abolitionists are irrational and wrong-headed. But 
the procession completely converted me. For so large a number of 
the people using draught-horses in it were so clearly unable to use 
them without abusing them, that 1 perceived total abstinence from 
horse-flesh to be the only remedy of which the case admitted. As 
it is all one to teetotalers whether you take half a pint of beer or 
half a gallon, so it was all one here whether the beast of burden 
were a pony or a cart-horse. Indeed, my case had the special 
strength that the half-pint quadruped underwent as much suffer- 
ing as the half gallon quadruped. Moral: total abstinence from 
horse-flesh through the w'hole length and breadth of the scale. This 
pledge will be in course of administration to all teetotal proces- 
sionists, not pedestrians, at the publishing office of All the Year 
Bound, on the first day of April, 1870. 

Observe a point for consideration. This procession comprised 
many persons in their gigs, broughams, tax-carts, barouches, chaises, 
and what not, who were merciful to the dumb beasts that drew 
them, and did not overcharge their strength. What is to be done 
with those unoffending persons? 1 will not run a-muck, and vilify 
and defame them, as teetotal tracts and platforms would most as- 


242 THE UKCOMMEKCIAL TKATELEE. j 

suredly do, if the question were one of drinking instead of driving: 
I merely ask what is to be done with them? The reply admits of 
no dispute whatever. Manifestly, in strict accordance with teetotal 
doctrines, they must come in too, and take the total abstinence 
from horse-flesh pledge. It is not pretended that 'those members of 
the procession misused certain auxiliaries which in most countries, 
and all ages, have been bestowed upon man for his use, but it is 
undeniable that other members of the procession did. Teetotal 
mathematics demonstrates that the less includes the greater; that 
the guilty include the innocent, the blind the seeing, the deaf the 
hearing, the dumb the speaking, the drunken the sober. If any of 
the moderate users of draught-cattle in question should deem that 
there is any gentle violence done to their reason by these elements 
of logic, they are invited to come out of the procession next Whit- 
suntide, and look at it from my ^window. 


XXXVI. 

THE HUPPIAN. 

1 ENTERTAIN SO Strong an objection to the euphonious softening 
of Ruffian into Rough, which has lately become popular, that I re- 
store the right word to the heading of this paper; the rather as my 
object is to dwell upon the fact that the Ruffian is tolerated among 
us to an extent that goes beyond all unruffianly endurance. 1 take 
the liberty to believe that if the Ruffian besets my life, a profes- 
sional Ruffian at large in the open streets of a great city, notorious- 
ly having no other calling than that of Ruffian, and of disquieting 
and desuoiling me as 1 go peacefully about my lawful business, 
interfering with no one, then the Government under which 1 have 
the great constitutional privilege, supreme honor and happiness, 
and all the rest of it, to exist, breaks down in the discharge of any 
Government’s most simple elementarv duty. 

What did 1 read in the London daily papers in the early days of 
this last September? That the Polipe had “ at length succeeded 

IN CAPTURING TwO OP THE NOTORIOUS GANG THAT HAVE SO 
LONG INPESTED THE WATERLOO ROAD.” Is it possible? What 
a wonderful Police! Here is a straight, broad, public thoroughfare 
of immense resort; half a mile long; gas-lighted by night; with a 
great gas-lighted railway station in it, extra the street lamps; full of 
shops; traversed by two popular cross-thoroughfares of considerable 
traffic; itself the main road to the South of London; and the ad- 
mirable Police have, after a long infestment of this dark and lonely 
spot by a gang of Ruffians, actually got hold of two of them. Why, 
can it be doubted that any man of fair London knowledge and com- 
mon resolution, armed with the powers of the Law, could have capt- 
ured the whole confederacy in a week? 

It is to the saving up of the Ruffian class by the Magistracy and 
Police — to the conventional preserving of them, as if they were 
Partridges— that their number and audacity must be in great part 
referred. Why is a notorious Thief and Ruffian ever left at large? 
He never turns his liberty to any account but violence and plunder, 
he never did a day’s work out of jail, he never will do a day’s 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


243 


work out of jail. As a proved notorious Thief, he is always con< 
signable to prison for three months. When he comes out he is 
surely as notorious a Thief as he was when he went in. Then 
send him back again. “ Just Heavenl” cried the Society for the 
protection of remonstrant Ruffians. “ This is equivalent to a sen- 
tence of perpetual imprisonment!” Precisely for that reason it has 
my advocacy. I demand to have the Ruffian kept out of my way, 
and out of the w-ay of all decent people. 1 demand to have the 
Ruffian employed, perforce, in hewing wood and drawing water 
somewhere for the general service, instead of hewing at her 
Majesty’s subjects, and drawing their watches out of their pockets. 
If this be termed an unreasonable demand, then the tax-gatherer’s 
demand on me must be far more unreasonable, and cannot be other- 
wise than extortionate and unjust. 

It will be seen that 1 treat of the Thief and Ruffian as one. I do 
so because 1 know the two characters to be one, in the vast majority 
of cases, just as well as the Police know it. (As to the Magistracy, 
with a few exceptions, they know nothing about it but what the 
Police choose to tell them.) There are disorderly classes of men 
who are not thieves; as railway navigators, brick-makeis, wood- 
sawyers, costermongers. These classes are often disorderly and 
troublesome; but it is mostly among themselves, and at any rate 
they have their industrious avocations, they work early and late, 
and work hard. The generic Ruffian — honorable member for what 
is tenderly called the Rough Element — is either a Thief or the com- 
panion of Thieves. When he infamously molests women comirg 
out of chapel on Banday evenings (for which 1 would have his back 
scarified often and deep), it is not only for the gratification of his 
pleasant instincts, but that there may be a confusion raised by which 
either he or his friends may profit, in the commission of highway 
robberies or in picking pockets. When he gets a police-constable 
down and kicks him helpless for life, it is because that constable 
once did his duty in bringing him to justice. When he rushes into 
the bar of a public-house, and scoops an eye out of one of the com- 
pany there, or bites his ear off, it is because the man he maims gave 
evidence against him. When he and a line of comrades extending 
across the foot-way — say of that solitary mountain-spur of the 
Abruzzi, the Waterloo Road— advance toward me “skylarking” 
among themselves, my purse or shirt-pin is in predestined peril from 
his playfulness. Always a Ruffian, always a Thief. Always a 
Thief, always a Ruffian. 

Now, when I. who am not paid to know these things, know them 
daily on the evidence of my senses and experience; when 1 know 
that Ihe Ruffian never jostles a lady in the street, or knocks a hat 
off, but in order that the Thief may profit, is it surprising that I 
should require, from those who are paid to know these things, pre- 
vention of them? 

Look at this group at a street corner. Number One is a shirking 
fellow of five-and-twenty, in an ill-favored and ill-savored suit, his 
trousers of corduroy, his coat of some indiscernible groundwork 
for the deposition of grease, his neckerchief like an eel, his com- 
plexion like dirty dough, his mangy fur cap pulled low upon his 
beetle brows to hide the prison cut of his hair. His hands are in his 


24 : 4 : 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


pockets. He puts them there when they are idle, as naturally as in 
other people’s pockets when they are busy, for he knows that they 
are not roughened by work, and that they tell a tale. Hence, when- 
ever he takes one out to draw a sleeve across his nose — which is 
often, for he has weak eyes and a constitutional cold in his head — 
he restores it to its pocket immediately afterward. Number Two is 
a burly brute of five and-thirty, in a tall stiff hat; is a composite, 
as to his clothes, ot betting-man and fighting-man; is whiskered; 
has a staring pin in his breast, along with his right hand; has inso- 
lent and cruel eyes; large shoulders; strong legs, booted and tipped 
for kicking. Number Three is forty years of age; is short, thick-set, 
strong, and bow-legged; wears knee-cords and white stockings, a 
very long-sleeved waistcoat, a very large neckerchief doubled or 
trebled round his throat, and a crumpled white hat crowns his 
ghastly parchment face. This fellow looks like an executed post- 
boy of other days, cut down from the gallows too soon, and restored 
and preserved by express diabolical agency. Numbers Five, Six, 
and Seven are hulking, idle, slouching young men, patched and 
shabby, too short in the sleeves and too tight in the legs, slimly 
clothed, foul-spoken, repulsive wretches inside and out. In all the 
party there obtains a certain twitching character of mouth and 
furtiveness of eye, that hint how the coward is lurking under the 
bully. The hint is quite correct, for they are a slinking, sneaking 
set, W more prone to lie down on their backs and kick out, when 
in difficulty, than to make a stand for it. (This may account for 
the street mud on the backs of Numbers Five, Six, and Seven being 
much fresher than the stale splashes on their legs.) 

These engaging gentry a Police-constable stands contemplating. 
His station, with a Reserve of assistance, is very near at hand. 
They cannot pretend to any trade, not even to be porters or mes- 
sengers. It would be idle if they did, for he knows them, and they 
know that he knows them, to be nothing but professed Thieves and 
Ruffians. He knows where they resort, knows by what slang names 
they call one another, knows how often they have been in prison, 
and how long, and for what. All this is known at his Station, too, 
and is (or ought to be) known at Scotland Yard, too. But does he 
know, or does his Station know, or does Scotland Yard know, or 
does anybody know, why these fellows should be here at liberty,, 
when, as reputed Thieves to whom a whole Division of Police could 
swear, they might all be under lock and key at hard labor? Not 
he; truly he would be a wise man if he did! He only knows that 
these are members of the “ notorious gang,” which, according to 
the newspaper Police Office reports of this last past September, 
” have so long infested ” the awful solitudes of the Waterloo Road, 
and out of which almost impregnable fastnesses the Police have at 
length dragged Two, to the unspeakable admiration of all good 
civilians. 

The consequences of this contemplative habit on the part of the 
Executive — a habit to be looked for in a hermit, but not in a Police 
System— are familiar to us all. The Ruffian becomes one of the 
established orders of the body politic. Uiider the playful name of 
Rough (as if he were merely a practical joker, his movements and 
successes are recorded on public occasions. Whether he mustered 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 245 

In large numbers or ^mall; whether he was in good spirits or de- 
pressed; whether he turned his generous exertions to very prosper- 
ous account, or Fortune was against him; whether he was in a 
sanguinary mood, or robbed with amiable horse-play and a gracious 
consideration for life and limb; all this is chronicled as if he were 
an Institution. Is there any city in Europe, out of England, in 
which these terms are held with the pests of g Dciety? Or in which 
at this day, such violent robberies from the person are constantly 
committed as in London? 

The Preparatory Schools of RuflSanism are similarly borne with. 
The Young Ruffians of London — not Thieves yet, but training for 
scholarships and fellowships in the Criminal-Court Universities — 
molest quiet people and their property, to an extent that is hardly 
credible. The throwing of stones in the street has become a dan- 
gerous and destructive offense, which surely could have got to no 
greater heights, though we had had no Police but our own riding 
whips and walking-sticks— the Police to which I myself appeal on 
these occasions. The throwing of stones at the windows of railway 
carriages in motion — an act of wanton wickedness with the very 
Arch-Fiend’s hand in it— had become a crying evil, when the rail- 
way companies forced it on Police notice. Constabular contempla- 
tion had until then been the order of the day. 

Within these twelve months, there arose among the young gentle- 
men of London aspiring to Ruffianism, and cultivating that much- 
encouraged social art, a facetious cry of “ I’ll have this!” accom- 
panied with a clutch at some article of a passing lady’s dress. I have 
known a lady’s veil to be thus humorously torn from her face and 
carried off in the open streets at noon; and I have had the honor of 
myself giving chase, on Westminster Bridge, to another young 
Ruffian, who, in full daylight early on a summer evening, had 
nearly thrown a modest young woman into a swoon of indignation 
and confusion by his shameful manner of attacking her with this 
cry as she harmlessly passed along before me. Mr. Carlyle, some 
time since, awakened a little pleasantry by writing of his own ex- 
perience of the Ruffian of the streets. I have seen the Ruffian act 
in exact accordance with Mr. Carlyle’s description, innumerable 
times, and I never saw him checked. 

The blaring use of the very worst language possible, in our public 
thoroughfares— especially in those set apart for recreation — is another 
disgrace to us, and another result of constabular contemplation, the 
like of which I have never heard in any other country to which my 
uncommercial travels have extended. Years ago, when I had a near 
interest in certain children who were sent with their nurses, for air 
and exercise, into the Regent’s Park, I found this evil to be so 
abhorrent and horrible there, that I called public attention to it, and 
also to its contemplative reception by the Police. Looking after- 
ward into the newest Police Act, and finding that the offense was 
punishable under it, I resolved, when striking occasion should arise, 
to try my hand as prosecutor. The occasion arose soon enough, 
and I ran the following gauntlet. 

The utterer of the base coin in question was a girl of seventeen or 
eighteen, who, with a suitable attendance of blackguards, youths, 
and boys, was daunting along the straet, returning from an Irish 


246 


THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELER. 


funeral, in a Progress interspersed with singing and dancing. She? 
had turned round to me and expressed herself in the most audible 
manner, to the great delight of that select circle. 1 attended the 
parly, on the opposite side of the way, for a mile further, and then 
encountered a Police-constable. The party had made themselves 
merry at my expense until now, but seeing me speak to the con- 
stable, its male members instantly took to their heels, leaving the 
girl alone. I asked the constable did he know my name? Yes, he 
did. “ Take that girl into custody, on my charge, for using bad 
language in the streets. ” He had never heard of such a charge. 1 
had. Would he take my word that he should get into no trouble? 
Yes, sir, he would do that. So he took the girl, and 1 went home 
for my Police Act. 

With this potent instrument in my pocket, 1 literally as well as 
figuratively “ returned to the charge,” and presented myselt at the 
police-statiou of the district. There 1 found on duty a very intelli- 
gent Inspector (^they are all intelligent men), who, likewise, had 
never heard of such a charge. I showed him my clause, and we 
went over it together twice or thrice. It was plain, and I engaged 
to wait upon the suburban Magistrate to-morrow morning at ten 
o’clock. 

In the morning, I put my Police Act in my pocket again, and 
waited on the suburban Magistrate. .1 was not quite so courteously 
received by him as I should have been by the Lord Chancellor or 
the Lord Chief Justice, but that was a question of good- breeding 
on the sububrban Magistrate’s part, and I had my clause ready, 
with its leaf turned down. Whicli was enough for me. 

Conference took place between the Magistrate and clerk respect- 
ing the charge. During conference I was evidently regarded as a 
much more objectionable person than the prisoner— one giving 
trouble by coming there voluntarily, which the prisoner could not 
be accused of doing. The prisoner had been got up, since I last had 
the pleasure of seeing her, with a great efifect of while apron and 
straw bonnet. She reminded me of an elder sister of Red Riding 
Hood, and I seemed to remind the sympathizing Chimney Sweep, 
by whom she was atteneded, of the Wolf. 

The Magistrate was doubtful, Mr. Uncommercial Traveler, 
whether this charge could be entertained. It was not known. Mr, 
Uncommercial Traveler replied that he wished it were better known, 
and that, if he could afford the leisure, he would use his endeavors 
to make it so. There was no question about it however, he con- 
tended. Here was the clause. 

The clause was handed in, and more conference resulted. After 
which I was asked the extra ordinary question: ” Mr. Uncommercial, 
do you realty wish this girl to be sent to prison?” To which I grimly 
answered, stating: ‘‘If I didn’t why should 1 take the trouble to 
come here?” Finally, I was sworn, and gave my agreeable evi- 
dence in detail, and White Riding Hood was fined ten shillings, 
under the clause, or sent to prison for so many days. ‘‘Why, 
Lord bless you, sir,” said the Police-oflicer who showed me out, 
with a great enjoyment of the jest of her having been got up so 
effectively, and caused so much hesitation: ‘‘ if she goes to prison,. 


THE UHCOMMEllCrAL THAVELER. 24 ? 

that will be nolhiug new to her. She comes from Charles Street, 
Drury Lane!” 

The Police, all things considered, are an excellent force, and I 
have borne my small testimony to their merits. Constabular con- 
templation is the result of a bad system; a system which is adminis- 
tered, not invented, by the man in constable’s uniform, employed at 
twenty shillings a week. He has his orders, and would be marked 
for discouragement if he overstepped them. That the system is 
bad, there needs no lengthened argument to prove, because the fact 
is self-evident. If it were anything else, the results that have 
attended it could not possibly have come to pass. AVho will say 
that, under a good system, our streets could have got into the 
present state? 

The objection to the whole Police System, as concerning the 
Kuffian, may be stated, and its failure exemplified, as follows. It is 
well known that on all great occasions, when they come together in 
numbers, the mass of the English people are their own Trustworthy 
Police. It is well known that wheresoever there is collected together 
any fair general representation of the people, a respect for law and 
order, and a determination to discountenance lawlessness and 
disorder, may be relied upon. As to one another, the people are 
a very good Police, and yet are quite willing, in their good-nature, 
that the stipendiary Police should have the credit of the people’s 
moderation. But we are all of us powerless against the Ruffian, be- 
cause we submit to the law, and it is his only trade, by superior 
force and by violence, to defy it. Moreover, wc are constantly ad- 
monished from high places (like so many Sunday-school children out 
for a holiday of buns and milk and water) that we are not to take 
the law into our own hands, but are to hand our defense over to 
it. It is clear that the common enemy to be punished and extermi- 
nated first of all is the Ruffian. It is clear that he is, of all others, 
the offender for whose reprisal we maintain a costly system of 
Police. Him, therefore, we expressly present to the Police to deal 
with, conscious that, on the wdiole, we can, and do, deal reasonably 
well with one another. Him the Police deal with so inefficiently and 
absurdly that he flourishes and multiplies, and, with all his evil 
de^ds upon his head as notoriously as his hat is, pervades the streets 
with no" more let or hindrance than ourselves. 


THE END. 


The Seaside Library. 


ORl>lNARV RRITION. 


GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

P« O. Box 3751* 17 to 37 Vandewater Street, New Vork> 


The following works contained in The Seaside Library, Ordi^iary Edition, 
are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage free, on 
.’?eceipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents tor double numbers, by the 


MRS. ALEXANDER’S WORKS. price. 

30 Her Dearest Foe 20 

36 The Wooing O’t 30 

46 The Heritage of Langdale 20 

370 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 10 

400 Which Shall it Be? . 30 

532 Maid, Wife, or Widow? 10 

1231 The Freres 20 

1259 Valerie’s Fate V 10 

1391 Look Before You Leap 20 

1502 The Australian Aunt 10 

1595 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

WILLIAM BLACK’S WORKS. 

13 A Princess of Thule 20 

28 A Daughter of Heth 10 

47 In Silk Attire 10 

48 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton 10 

51 Kilmeny 10 

53 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. 10 

79 Madcap Violet (small type) 10 

604 Madcap Violet (large type) 20 

242 The Three Feathers 10 

390 The Marriage of Moira Fergus, and The Maid of Killeena. 10 

417 Macleod of Dare 20 

451 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 10 

568 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 10 

816 White Wings: A Yachting Romance 10 

826 Oliver Goldsmith 10 

950 Sunrise: A Story of These Times 20 

1025 The Pupil of Aurelius 10 

1032 That Beautiful Wretch 10 

1161 The Four MacNicols 10 

1264 Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., in the Highlands 10 

1429 An Adventure in Thule. A Story for Young People 10 

1556 Shandon Bells 20 

1683 Yolande, 


XII 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition, 


CAPTAIN MARRYAT’S WORKS.- Continued. 

159 The Phantom Ship 1ft 

163 Frank Mildmay / 10 

170 Newton Forster TO 

173 Japhet in Search of a Father 20 

175 The Pacha of Many Tales 10 

176 Percival Keene 10 

185 The Little Savage 10 

192 The Three Cutters 10 

199 Settlers in Canada 10 

207 The Children of the New Forest 10 

266 Jacob Faithful 10 

273 Snarleyyow, the Dog Fiend 10 

282 Poor Jack 10 

340 Peter Simple 2Q; 

898 The Mission ; or, Scenes in Africa 2® 

1070 The Poacher 20 

1116 Valerie 20 

FLORENCE MARRYAT’S WORKS. 

110 The Girls of Feversham 10 

119 Petronel 20 

197 “ No Intentions” 20 

206 The Poison of Asps 10 

219 “My Own Child” 10 

305 Her Lord and Master 10 

323 A Lucky Disappointment 10 

426 Written in Fire 20 

533 Ange 20 

635 A Harvest of Wild Oats 20 

703 The Root of All Evil 20 

742 A Star and a Heart 10 

784 Out of His Reckoning 10 

820 The Fair-Haired Alda 20 

897 Love’s Conflict 20 

3.038 With Cupid’s Eyes 20 

1067 A Little Stepson i 10 

1086 My Sister the Actress 20 

1349 Phyllida. A Life Drama 20 

1654 Facing the Footlights 20 

MISS MULOCK S WORKS. 

2 John Halifax, Gentleman 10 

^456 John Halifax, Gentleman (large type) 20 

77 Mistress and Maid 10 

81 Christian’s Mistake 10 

82 My Mother and 1 10 

88 The Two Marriages 10 

91 The Woman’s Kingdom 20 

101 A Noble Life 10 

X03 A Brave Lady 20 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. xin 


MISS MULOCK’S WOBKS.— Continued. 

131 A Life, for a Life 36' 

130 SermoDS Out of Church 10 

135 Agatha’s Husband 20 

143 The Head of the Family 20 

327 Hannah 10 

240 The Laurel Bush 10 

291 Olive 20 

394 The Ogilvies 20 

314 Nothing New 10' 

320 A Hero 10 

330 A Low Marrilage 10 

457 The Last of the Ruthvens. and The Self-Seer 10 

480 Avillion ; or, The Happy Isles 10 

626 Young Mrs. Jardine 10 

628 Motherless (Translated by Miss Mulock) 10 

753 The Italian’s Daughter 10 

773 The Two Homes 10 

804 A Bride’s Tragedy 10 

834 A Legacy 30 

850 The Half-Caste , 10 

886 Miss Letty’s Experiences iO 

945 Studies from Life 10 

964 His Little Mother, and Other Tales 10 

978 A Woman’s Thoughts About Women ^ 10 

1039 Twenty Years Ago. A Book for Girls. (Edited by Miss 

Mulock) 10 

1177 An Only Sister, Madame Guizot de Witt. (Edited by Miss 

Mulock) 10 

1361 Plain-Speaking lO 


MRS. OLIPHANT’S WORKS. 

136 Katie Stewart ; 10 

210 Young Musgrave 30 

391 The Primrose Path 30 

452 An Odd Couple 10 

475 Heart and Cross 10 

488 A Beleaguered City . 10 

497 For Love and Life 20 

511 Squire Arden 20 

543 The Story of Valentine and His Brother 20 

596 Caleb Field 10 

651 Madonna Mary 20 

665 The Fugitives 10- 

680 The Greatest Heiress in England 2(1 

706 Earthbound 10 

775 The Queen (Illustrated) 10 

785 Orphans 10 

603 Phoebe, Junior. A Last Chronicle of Carlingford 20 

675 No. 3 Grove Road lO, 


Xrv THE SEASIDE LIBBAEY. — Ordinary Edition, 

— ...IM 

MRS, OLIPHANT’S WORKS.-Continued. 

881 He That Will Not When He May 2Q 

919 May 20 

959 Miss Marjoribanks. Part I '20 

959 Miss Marjoribanks. Part II 20 

1004 Harry Joscelyn 20 

1017 Carita 20 

1049 In Trust 20 

1215 Brownlows 20 

1319 Lady Jane 10 

1396 Whiteladies 20 

1407 A Rose in June 10 

1449 A Little Pilgrim 10 

1547 It Was a Lover and His Lass 20 

1662 Salem Chapel 20 

1669 The Minister’s Wife. First half 20 

1669 The Minister’s Wife. Second half 20 


“OUIDA’S” WORKS. 

49 Granville de Vigne; or, Held in Bondage 20 

54 Under Two Flags 20 

■ 55 In a Winter City 10 

56 Strathmore 20 

59 Chandos 20 

61 Bebee; or, Two Little Wooden Shoes 10 

62 Folle-Farine 20 

71 Ariadne — The Story of a Dream 20 

181 Beatrice Boville 10 

211 Randolph Gordon 10 

230 Little Grand and the Marchioness 10 

241 Tricotrin 20 

249 Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage 10 

279 A Leaf in the Storm, and Other Tales 10 

281 Lady Marabout’s Troubles 10 

334 Puck 20 

377 Friendship 20 

379 Pascarel 20 

386 Signa 20 

389 Idalia 20 

563 A Hero’s Reward 10 

676 Umilta 10 

699 Moths 20 

791 Pipistrello 10 

864 Findelkind 10 

915 A Village Commune 20 

1025 The Little Earl 10 

1247 In Marerama 20 

1334 Bimbi 10 

1586 Frescoes 10 

1625 Wanda, Countess von Szalras 20 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. 


JAMES PAYN’S WORKS. 

138 What He Cost Her 10 

S99 By Proxy 20 

845 Halves 10 

358 Less Black Than We’re Painted 20 

369 Found Dead 10 

882 Gwendoline’s Harvest 20 

401 A Beggar on Horseback 10 

406 One of the Family 20 

485 At Her Mercy 20 

502 Under One Roof (Illustrated) 20 

602 Lost Sir Massingberd 10 

646 Married Beneath Him 20 

687 Fallen Fortunes 20- 

892 A Confidential Agent 20 

981 From Exile 20 

1045 The Clyflards of Clyffe 20' 

1149 A Grape from a Thorn 20 

1193 High Spirits 10 

1267 For Cash Only 20 

1516 Kit: A Memory 20 

1524 Carlyon’s Year , 10 

1652 A Woman’s Vengeance : 20 

CHARLES READE’S WORKS. 

4 A Woman-Hater 20 

19 A Terrible Temptation 10 

21 Foul Play 20 

24 “It is Never Too Late to Mend ” 20 

31 Love Me Little, Love Me Long 20 

34 A Simpleton 10 

41. White Lies 20 

78 Grifiith Gaunt 20 

86 Put Yourself in His Place 20 

112 Very Hard Cash 20 

203 The Cloister and the Hearth 20 

237 The Wandering Heir 10 

246 Peg Woffington 10 

270 The Jilt. . . : 10 

371 Christie Johnstone 10 

536 Jack of all Trades 10 

1204 Clouds and Sunshine 10 

1322 The Knightsbridge Mystery 10 

1390 Singleheart and Doubleface. A Matter-of-Fact Romance. . 10 

W. CLARK RUSSELL’S WORKS. 

848 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 20 

1034 An Ocean Free Lance 20 

1339 The Wreck of the “Grosvenor” 20 

1373 My Watch Below; or, Yearns Spun When Off Duty 20 

1381 Auld Lang Syne 10 

1467 The “ Lady Maud”: Schooner Yacht 20 

1653 A Sea Queen 20^ 


tvi THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. 


SIR WALTER SCOTT’S WORKS. 

39 Ivanhoe 20 

183 Kenilworth **.*.!.*!,*! 20 

196 Heart of Mid-Lothian 20 

593 The Talisman ] . * ’ 20 

723 Guy Mannering !.*.*.*.!!. 20 

857 Waverley 20 

920 Rob Roy 20 

1007 Quentin Durward 20 

1082 Count Robert of Paris 20 

1275 Old Mortality 20 

1328 The Antiquary 20 

1399 The Pirate , 20 

1462 The Betrothed : A Tale of the Crusaders, and The Chroni- 
cles of the Canongate 20 

1598 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the Eighteenth Century 20 

1701 The Monastery 20 

1702 The Abbot (Sequel to “ The Monastery 20 

EUGENE SUE S WORKS. 

129 The Wandering Jew. First half 20 

129 The Wandering Jew. Second half 20 

205 The Mysteries of Paris. First half 20 

205 The Mysteries of Paris. Second half 20 

800 De Rohan ; or, The Court Conspirator 20 

835 Arthur 20 

1030 The Commander of Malta 20 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or. The Adventures of a Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. 1 20 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or. The Adventures of aj Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. II 20- 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or. The Adventures of a Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. Ill 20 

1590 Pride; or. The Duchess. First half 20 

1590 Pride; or. The Duchess. Second.half 20 

WM. M. THACKERAY’S WORKS. 

559 Vanity Fair 20 

570 Lovel, the Widower 10 

580 Denis Duval 10 

582 Henry Esmond 20 

613 The Newcomes. Parti 20 

613 The Newcomes. Part H 20 

624 The Great Hoggarty Diamond 10 

638 Pendennis. Part 1 20 

638 Pendennis. Part II 20 

648 The Virginians. Part I 20 

648 The Virginians. Part II 20 

669 Adventures of Philip. Parti 20 

669 Adventures of Philip. Part II 20 

961 Barry Lyndon 10 

1597 Catherine: A Story. By Ikey Solomons, Esq., Junior.. 10 


THE SEASIDE LIB BABY.— Ordinary Edition. xvii 


ANTHONY TROLLOPE’S WORKS. 

12 The American Senator 20 

S99 The Lady of Launay 10 

630 Sir Harry Hotspur of Humbletliwaite 20 

631 John Caldigate 10 

601 Cousin Henry 10 

768 The Duke’s Children 20 

870 An Eye for an Eye 10 

910 Dr. Wortle’s School 10 

944 Miss Mackenzie 20 

1047 Ayala’s Angel 20 

1090 Barchester Towers 20 

1201 Phineas Finn. First half 20 

1201 Phineas Finn. Second half 20 

1206 Doctor Thorne. First half 20 

1206 Doctor Thorne. Second half 20 

1217 Lady Anna 20 

1256 The Fixed Period 10 

1283 Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices, and Other Stories 10 

1292 Marion Fay 20 

1306 The Struggles of Brown, Jpnes & Robinson 20 

1318 Orley Farm. First half 20 

1318 Orley Farm. Second half 20 

1348 The Belton Estate 20 

1419 Kept in the Dark 10 

1436 The Kellys and The O Kellys 20 

1450 The Two Heroines of Plumplington 10 

1455 The Macdermots of Ballycloran 20 

1473 Castle Richmond 20 

1486 Phineas Redux. First half 20 

1486 Phineas Redux. Second half , 20 

1494 The Vicar of Bullhampton .' 20 

1511 Not If I Know It 10 

1551 Is He Popenjoy? 20 

1559 The Small House at Allington. First half 20 

1559 The Small House at Allington. Second half 20 

1567 The Last Chronicle of Barset. First half 20 

1567 The Last Chronicle of Barset. Second half 20 

1634 The Way We Live Now. First hall 20 

1634 The Way We Live Now. Second half 20 

1656 Mio Scarborough’s Family 10 

JULES VERNE’S WORKS. 

5 The Black-Indies 10 

16 The English at the North Pole 10 

43 Hector Servadac 10 

57 The Castaways; or, A Voyage Round the World — South 

America 10 

60 The Castaways; or, A Voyage Round the World — Australia 10 
64 The Castaways; or, A Voyage Round the World — New 

Zealand 7 10 


XTiii TRE SEASIDE LIBRABY. — Ordinary Edition, 


JULES VERNE’S WORKS. -Continued. 

68 Five Weeks in a Balloon 10 

72 Meridiana, and The Blockade Runners 10 

75 The Fur Country. Part I 10 

75 The Fur Country. Part II 10 

84 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas 10 

87 A Journey to the Centre of the Earth 10 

90 The Mysterious Island — Dropped from the Clouds 10 

93 The Mysterious Island — The Abandoned 10 

97 The Mysterious Island — The Secret of the Island 10 

99 From the Earth to the Moon 10 

111 A Tour of the World in Eighty Days .• 10 

131 Michael Strogoff 10 

1092 Michael StrogoU (large type, illustrated edition) 20 

414 Dick Sand; or, Captain at Fifteen. Part I 10 

414 Dick Sand; or, Captain at Fifteen. Part II 10 

466 Great Voyages and Great Navigators. Part 1 10 

466 Great Voyages and Great Navigators. Part II 10 

466 Great Voyages and Great Navigators. Part III '20 

505 The Field of Ice (Illustrated) 10 

510 The Pearl of Lima 10 

520 Round the Moon (Illustrated) 10 

634 The 500 Millions of the Begum. 10 

647 Tribulations of a Chinaman 10 

673 Dr. Ox's Experiment 10 

710 Survivors of the Chancellor 10 

818 The Steam-House; or, A Trip Across Northern India. 

Part 1 10 

818 The Steam -House or, A Trip Across Northern India. 

Part II 10 

1043 The Jangada; or, Eight Hundred Leagues over the 

Amazon. Part 1 10 

1043 The Jangada; or. Eight Hundred Leagues over the 

Amazon. Part II 10 

1519 Robinsons’ School 10 

1677 The Headstrong Turk. First half 10 

MRS. HENRY WOOD’S WORKS. 

1 East Lynne 10 

381 East Lynne (in large type) 20 

25 Ladv Adelaide’s Oath 20 

37 The'Mystery 10 

1125 The Mystery (large type edition) 20 

40 The Heir to Ashley 10 

45 A Life’s Secret 10 

52 The Lost Bank Note 10 

63 Dene Hollo 20 

65 The Nobleman’s Wife 10 

67 Castle Wafer, and Henry Arkell 10^ 

73 Bessy Rane 20 

74 Rupert Hall 10 


THE SEASIDE LIBRABT. — Ordinai'y Edition. xix. 


MRS. HENRY WOOD’S WORKS.— Continued. 

83 Verner’s Pride 20 

92 Mrs. Haliiburton’s Troubles 20 

106 The Master of Greylands 20 

115 Within the Maze 20 

124 Squire Trevlyn’s Heir 20 

143 The Haunted Tower 10 

220 George Canterbury's Will 20 

256 Lord Oakburu’s Daughters 20 

288 “The Channings 20 

310 Roland Y orke . 20 

328 The Shadow of Ashlydyat 20 

349 Elster’s Folly , 20 

357 Red Court Farm 20 

365 Oswald Cray 20 

373 St. Martin’s Eve 20 

443 Pomeroy Abbey 20 

467 Edina. ... 20 

508 Orville College 20 

914 Johnny Ludlow. Part I. . 20 

914 Johnny Ludlow. Part H 20 

x05-i A Tale of Sin 10 

1076 Anne; or, The Doctor’s Daughter 10 

1094 Rose Lodge 10 

1117 Lost in the Post, and Other Tales 10 

31128 Robert Ashtoq’s Wedding Day, and Other Tales 10 

f '166 Court Netherleigh 20 

For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sbnt to any address, post- 
age free, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents for 
tiouble numbers, by the publisher. Parties ordering by mail will 
please order by numbers. 

GEORGE MTINRO, Publisher, 

17 to 37 Vandewater Sti’eet, New York, 


P. O. Box 3751 


I 

The Seaside Library — Pocket Edition. 

(CONTINUED FROM SECOND PAGE OF COVER.) 


NO. PRICE. 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. ByM. Wiyht- 

wick 10 

114 Some of our Girls. By Mrs. Eiloart. . 20 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. By T. Adol- 

phus Trollope 10 

116 Moths. ‘•ByOuida” 20 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. By 

W. H. G. Kingston 20 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and Eric Der- 

ing. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

119 Monica, and A Rose Distill'd. By 

The Duchess ” 10 

120 Tom Brown’s Schoolda 3 's at Rngbj'. 

By Thos. Hughes 20 

121 Maid of Athens. Bj' Justin McCarthy 20 

122 lone Stewart. By Mrs. E. Lynn Linton 20 

123 Sweet is True Love. “ The Du'^hess 10 

124 Three Feathers. By William i,iack.. 20 

125 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. By 

William Black 20 

126 Kilmeny. Bj" William Black 20 

127 Adrian Bright. By Mrs. Cadd.y 20 


' NO. PRICE. 

; 128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches. By 

” Ouida ” 10 

129 Rossmoyne. By “ The Duchess ” — 10 

130 The Last of the Barons. By Sir E. 

Bulwer Lytton 40 i 

131 Our Mutual Friend. Bj’ Charles Dick- 

ens 40 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock. By Charles 

Dickens 10 

133 Peter the Whaler. By Win. H. G. 

Kingston 10 

134 The Witching Hour. “ The Duchess ” 10 

135 A Great Heiress. By R. E. Francillon 10 

136 “ That Last Rehearsal.” By ” The 

Duchess ” 10 

137 Uncle Jack. By Walter Besant 10 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. By 

William Black 20 

139 The Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 

maid. By Thomas Hardy 10 

140 A Glorious Fortune. Walter Besant. . 10 

141 She Loved Him. By Annie Thomas. 10 


The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage pre- 
paid, by the-publisher, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents for double numbers. 
Parties wishing the Pocket Edit ion of The Seaside Library must be careful to mention the Pocket 
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GEORGE iniINRO, Publisher, 

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PROSPKC'r IIS FOR 1884. 

THE HEW YORK FIRESIDE COMPAHIOH, 

The Fireside Companion is the best paper of the kind published. Its popularity is 
entirely owing to good stories. Stories of detective life and service have always been one 
of its great features. 

“OLD SLEUTH’S” STORIES 

Are Universally Admitted to be THE BEST DETECTIVE STORIES. 


The best native talent is emploj’ed in every department. Among its female writers are 

Mrs. liiicy Randall Comfort, Mrs. Charlotte M. Stanley, Mrs. 

Alex. McVeigh Miller, Mrs. Sumner Hayden, Christine 


Carlton, Rose Ashleigli, the Author of “Dora 
Thorne,’’ Mary Cecil Hay, etc., etc. 

The most delightful love stories are to be found in its pages. The highest standard is 
maintained. Only the most interesting contributions are published. The Fireside Com- 
panion Contains the Richest Variety of Sketches and Literary Misceuany. 


’FFRIIS FOR 1884: —The New York Fireside Companion will be sent for 
one j’ear, on receipt of ®3; two copies for $5; or nine copies for $20. Getters-up of Clubs 
can afterward add single copies at $2.50 eacli. We will be responsible for remittances sent 
in Registered Lettei-s, or bv Po«t-offlce Money Oi-ders. Postage free. Specimen copies 
sent free. GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 17 to 27 Vandewater St., N. Y. (P. O. Box 3751.) 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 

Latest Issues. 

NO, PRICE. 

151 The Ducie Biamoiids. By C. Blatherwick 10 

150 For Himself Alone. By T. W. Speight 10 

149 The Cjiptjiin’s l)aug:hter. From the Kussian op Pushkin 10 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. By Author op “ Dora Thorne ” 20 

147 Rachel Ray. By Anthony Trollope 20 

146 Love Finds the Way, and Other Stories. By Besant and Rice 10 

145 God and the Man. By Robert Buchanan 20 

144 Promises of Marriage. By Emile Gaboriau 10 

143 One False, Both Fair. By John B. Harwood 20 

142 Jenifer. By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip) 20 

141 She Loved Him. By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender Cudlip) 10 

140 A Glorious Fortune. By alter Besant 10 

139 The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. By Thos. Hardy. 10 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. By William Black 20 

137 Uncle Jack. By Walter Besant 10 

136 “That Last Rehearsal.” By “The Duchess”. 10 

135 A Great Heiress. By R. E. Francillon 10 

129 Rossmoyne. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

127 Adrian Bright. By Mrs. Caddy 20 

122 lone Stewart. By Mrs. E. Lynn Linton 20 

121 Maid of Athens. By Justin McCarthy 20 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. By T. Adolphus Trollope 10 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. By M. Wightwick 10 

112 The Waters of Marah. By John Hill... 20 

110 Under The Red Flag. By Miss M. E. Braddon 10 

109 Little Loo. By W. Clark Russell 20 

105 A Noble Wife. By John Saunders 20 

104 The Coral Pin. By F. Du Boisgobey 30 

97 All in a Garden Fair. By Walter Besant 20 

54 A Br-oken Wedding-Ring. By the Author op “Dora Thorne” 20 

51 Dora Thorne. By the Author op “ Her Mother’s Sin ” 20 

48 Thicker Than Water. By James Payn 20 

47 Altiora Peto. By Laurence Oliphant 20 

1 Yolande. By William Black 20 

The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage 
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and other Popular Authors. 

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